Starting a Rug

I am starting a small area rug, using some deep brown felted batting I had made a few years ago.  I recently drew (using colored pencils) a loose circle of sassafras leaves in their autumn colors.  I thought  this might make a beginning pattern for an area rug (or wall hanging) repeating the circle swirl outward to the edges of the rug.  Here is the drawing:

Next, I scanned the drawing just to get some cut-out patterns for the leaves I would use.  Then, I made some pre-felt in autumnal colors and began to cut out the leaves, pictured below. 

Here are some of the cut out, pre-felt leaves.  The next step is to needle-felt them into place on the background, then begin wet felting.  I need to do much more work on this, so stay tuned for updates!