Dreams of Fields

My medieval village has been lacking grain fields as well as animals. I've been admiring those lovely ones made from coir mats. To that end sometime last year, I ordered a big coir mat from Amazon having had no luck finding any in hardware or housewares stores.

Now I should have ordered a rubber backed mat that could just be cut apart, based and given a bit of flock around the edges. But I got the "100% natural" mat, which turned out to be quite thick with the coir stitching holding it all together.

Very thick and that edging won't do

With edging removed

Chunk of mat, still too tall

So nothing for it but to remove the tufts, trim an end flat and stick them in glue. My medieval farmer with his scythe is helping me with the scale.

Occasionally pushing everything down and compressing the clumps together seems to help. Having a pile of tufts pre-trimmed also helps. With a large base you need to work in sections.

Once everything was glued down and set, I painted the base brown and then flocked around the edges. On the one base I did a bit of cut or trampled grain. That got some sand which was dry brushed a lighter brown before trimmed fibres got glued over top.

Very laborious, but looking good in the end. I've barely touched the mat so I can make loads more some other time.