I’ve attached the chiffon and felt flower (from the Great Scunthorpe Embroidery Challenge) to the painted pink fabric on the top right, after adding a few more longer strands of beads. They are subtle, and you need to be up fairly close to see them through the chiffon.

I went on a search for suitable backing fabric, having decided that my original idea of a mount and a frame wasn’t going to work. In the end, I settled on a piece of burgundy velvet. It feels wonderfully luxurious; the pink canvas edge will be turned under, and the stitching will be the edge.

I laced it over a piece of mount board, having zigzagged the raw edges first. It’s the first time that I’ve worked across on the diagonal and mitred the corners on anything this large.

At this stage, you can still see creases on the front, but they disappeared once I’d laced horizontally and vertically, which stretched the fabric.

While searching for a bias binding gadget (for another project) I found another unfinished project. A machine stitched pansy that I think was a workshop with Corrine Young years ago. I’ve not found the instructions yet, but it just happens to be the perfect colour with the canvas work and the velvet.

I’ve also put some more strands of beads on the top left, just above the metal flowers. I want to put some more French knots bottom left, and Colin thinks that I need something at the top of the central velvet to balance it, but I’m not convinced. I don’t want to take it off the frame until I’ve finished, so I’m leaving it where I can see it, propped up on the velvet background to assess. It’s even nearer there, and I’ve done the lacing which I tend to procrastinate about.