Needlework WIP: Tissue Box ready for assembly

I finished up the last panel of the needlepoint tissue box this morning before work: all I had left was the embroidery floss embellishments - in this case the stems on the fruit.  Here are the four panels:

Robin (spring)

Cardinal (winter)

Meadowlark (fall)

Blue Jay (summer)

This project is needlepoint - which is traditionally used for upholstery, pillows, rugs and accessories such as bags, belts, eyeglasses cases and so forth.  All items that need to be hard wearing.  You can see that the back of the work is as covered as the front. 

Needlepoint is traditionally made in tent stitch, which can be worked in three ways:  Half Cross, Continental, and Basketweave.  (Links to stitch tutorials from Threadneedle Street in Washington State.) I used a mix of continental (horizontal and vertical) and basketweave to do the tissue box.  Because the canvas is rigid, there isn't the concern of continental stitch distorting the ground as there is with linen or cotton canvas.  You can also do many counted thread techniques on plastic canvas - just none of the stitches that depend on distorting the ground (flip side of the rigid canvas).  Here's the top with cross stitches, bargello and a variant of scotch stitch.

Now on to the assembly, which is done in an overcast version of half cross over two layers of canvas.  The trick with it is to keep the tension even.  We'll see how it goes......