Meadow - December progress

If you haven't guessed by now, I like to have a lot of variety in my projects.  This is the needlepoint project I started this fall.  The design is by Elizabeth Bradley, and this one is from the Natural History series.  I've loved Elizabeth Bradley designs ever since I bought her books back in the late 1980s.  About five years ago I found that the kits were available online, and I've finished two so far:

Woodland

Duck Pond

My general plan is to join them into a wall tapestry, but I don't know how many I will do.  Although there are ten designs in the series, only four are available as kits.  Once I have finished all the kits I will consider if I am sufficiently inspired to keep going.  My intention is to do one each winter, because needlepoint is too hot for our Toronto summers.  Back in November I calculated that if I did about an hour a day, most days a month, I would be done by April.  I lost a lot of time in December when my allergies flared up (including my allergy to wool), but I'm hoping to get back on track now.  Monthly updates here should keep me motivated!

409 Yoyos!

Here they are, all 409 completed yoyos!  I am actually a little sad that this part of the project is over.  It's been fun catching up on my tv shows while making them.

The next step will be cutting the background fabric into long strips and sewing them down.  Here is a better photo of the background, a brown batik:

The pattern suggests that the yoyos be sewn down with a running stitch and strong hand quilting thread, rather than an applique stitch.  I have tested this and I like it.  If I take the stitches between the gathers I can preserve the dimensionality of the yoyos, which will be nice.  I'm really hoping that this next stage will be easy enough to do in front of the tv as well!