The final construction

At last I've arrived at a point where I can begin the final construction of this project and also have the first glimpse of how the lace panel will look in front of the portraits.

I was quite pleased to see that so far the portrait layer will be seen quite well through the lace, but it remains to be seen how much of the final layer of the women pulling on the rope will be visible.

I selected this piece of lace for a trial as it has very dense stitching and I wanted to know if one layer of water soluble stabiliser would be enough to support it. 

After the design had been stitched and the registration marks added to allow for each separate hooping of the design to be matched, the stabiliser was cut away and the piece was then washed gently in warm water.