Damp stretching the flowers

I promised last time that I'll be starting on putting the bottom panel together next, and I am, but I'm afraid there's quite a bit of prep work to do before I can start any actual embroidery.

Firstly, damp stretching the various sheets of flowers.  If you've been following the blog for a while you'll know that I prefer to damp stretch rather than iron embroidery; it gives a much smoother finish, I can control any reshaping that might be necessary much easier, and there's no risk of accidentally scorching the fabric.

Here are all the sheets, together for the first time:

Happily, there's no pulling or puckering around the embroidery, but as you can see, the fabric's slightly rippled, and I want it to be nice and flat.  So, after a an hour or two of careful pinning onto a cork board, here they all are stretched taught:

I then lightly sprayed them with a plant mister, and left them overnight to dry.  And the result?  Beautifully smooth, absolutely flat embroidery:

Next, I need to get the bottom panel itself ready.