This week our featured doll is Joan of Arc.  Joan was a French peasant who had visions that inspired her to rally France in their fight against England.   My goal was to complete a doll early this week and when the internet went down I chose to pull out my physical books and start working away. I noticed I hadn’t done any female dolls yet so Joan was someone I admired and had books about.   The armor was something I’d struggled to perfect in the past but with my new attitude “just do the best you can with what you have”, I jumped in. 

I had grey felt, silver sparkly foam and a small amount of silver paper.  Dark brown hair was doable and was the first piece I drew after cutting the doll out of a light colored card stock.  About the time I was printing my hand drawn armor pattern off on the printer, I realized I had silver Sharpie markers!!!  I love silver Sharpie markers for Quiet Dolls because you can trace the patterns onto dark materials and cut out easily. Before silver Sharpies I’d have to use chalk and it was messy. 

I pulled out two Childcraft books and read about Joan.  Holidays and Birthdays volume 9 had an article on Joan and lots of ideas for future dolls.  The 1988 Childcraft Annual Stories of Freedom had a larger article and more illustrations.  Once the internet was back up I could do more research and pinned a variety of images.

Joan was martyred on May 30. 1431 This is the day the Roman Catholic Church honors her on . Her actual birth date is not known.

She had dark brown hair. Her eye color is not recorded anywhere but the majority of French have brown eyes so I took the liberty of giving her brown eyes.

One quote on the internet said that Prince Charles had armor created especially for Joan and it cost asd much as ten horses. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/28/world/this-suit-a-well-worn-petite-may-have-been-joan-of-arc-s.html
https://www.jeanne-darc.info/biography/suit-of-armour/

I made her without a helmet or gauntlets on her hands.  This is my first sword!