This is a little practice piece I made just to see how to fit the little house into the 3” square, try out some colors, experiment with the border …. I’m pretty, but not completely, happy with it. House roofline will change in order to more accurately reflect the original map, and I think I’ll go with the “hedgerow” border as opposed to the “fence,” which I didn’t intend as a fence when I made it, but that’s what it suggested to me after I created it. And I’m pretty sure there are hedges on the original map. It’s hard to tell, but I think that’s what those borders are supposed to be.

I got the whole center medallion — about 65” square — drawn off into segments, and that took a while. Was trickier than I expected.

This morning I got a good start on the little houses. At present it takes me 3.5 minutes to make one, so if my math is correct it’ll take me a little better than 6 hours to complete all 116 of the suckers. That’s not taking into consideration the fact that I’ll probably get faster as I go along.

Then, when I finish the little houses, there’ll be the trees — hundreds and hundreds of ‘em — and the hedges; and the big house in the middle, with its boxwood garden (?); and then the several borders with their rows and rows of planted crops; and that crazy exterior fortification with its 60 cannons. Fun!

I forgot to mention the occasional deer and even, every now and then, what looks like a human.

Just so you know, I’m not in any rush to complete this quilt. I consider this particular piece a long-term project and will be working on other projects as I return again and again to The Margravate.