Design challenges

This is a block for the Silk Ribbon Embroidery RR that I am participating in.   I used a silkie that I had printed out from my computer.  The photo is one that I took sometime in 1988 in a little village in Scotland.  There was a row of small houses with wonderful gardens, each a mass of colour with thousands of flowers.  The silkie was quite wide so I placed it at an angle.  For hours as I worked on the block I wasn't happy with it's look and I almost gave up and began again without using the photo in the middle. 

Then it hit me.  The picture would look so much better sitting straight on to the fabric.  So I cut another square of muslin and placed it so that I could make the block square with the photo parallel to the top and bottom edges.  Here it is with the second square of muslin poking out at the edges.

Now here it is straightened up waiting to be finished and I didn't have to unpick a thing!