Stop Motion Cross Stitch

I am completely obsessed with Lev Grossman's Magicians series, so naturally I am on his mailing list. The third and final book is coming out this summer, and he recently emailed out that he will be releasing a book trailer in the style of Star Wars Uncut - each sentence in the first few paragraphs of the new book will be read/performed by a different person. Unlike Star Wars Uncut it is a contest - you don't get to claim a sentence in advance, you just send him your video of a sentence and he'll pick the best version of each one for the final trailer. Since the closest thing to a talent I have is cross stitch, I figured I should use that to try and make something special. That led to the creation of this highly technical stop motion studio:

I used various pantry items to construct a rig to hold my camera and embroidery hoop (relatively) in place, then got up at the crack of dawn last weekend to start stitching while the light was good. I took a photo after each stitch, and then Ben helped me trim and align the photos to make a video. It ended up being less painfully tedious than I had anticipated, although it still took a looooong time. Overall I'm pleased with the result, although there were many lessons learned for if I ever do something like this again (note the red clip that drifts into the frame right around when the crow appears):
I have no idea if this is anywhere near good enough to make it in the final trailer, but it was fun to figure out a new project with Ben. I want to make another one this summer when I have more free time... ideas welcome!