Insetting a large image

It's been quiet on this blog... I'm fine... it's my off the wall hubby who has had me distracted.  He's been on a walkabout in Kenya ( he marches to his own drum) and was injured... (hit by a vehicle so I've been a nervous wreck). He finally got the medical care he needed and is on his way back to the U.S.... complete with cast.  I'm already feeling bad for the airline stewards who are dealing with him on  4 different long flights.
So back to business...
What to do when you want to inset a larger that normal image using reverse appliqué.   First..  Here's where we went with this... then how we got there.
I had painted a requested monochromatic commission piece of a young man with a tragic life ending( heart attack at 24) .  The original ink'd image is 15 1/2 " around which I have ink'd about a 1/3 inch  circular fillet of black. Then, the circular image ( now appx 16 1/3 " diameter) is to be reverse appliqued beneath a charcoal /light grey chevron fabric.   So, how to get it inset with  the precision 1/4 inch black fillet??!!

I first ironed/ starched the painted fabric and the chevron fabric. 

Looking from the back side of the painted image here... 

The chevron fabric with a precut small slit in the very center is secured to the painted image ( right side of painted image to wrong side of chevron fabric). 

From the wrong side of the painted image, I used my 1/4" foot to guide me in stitching a 1/4 inch running stitch  precisely1/4 inch from the original painted image.  This stitching in white will later be removed as I work from the front doing a reverse circular appliqué.  This step is what allows real precision in this appliqué effort. 

The rest is slow but important to this piece. .. After I removed a circular piece of the chevron fabric where I left enough chevron fabric to turn under for hand appliqué, I began 

 the slow process of  pulling out a few stitches of the white thread seen previous and carefully appliquéing.

The process in a nutshell... 

TRIM, REMOVE 4 or 5 white stitches,  STITCH, REPEAT.. til the circle is complete.

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This was a slow step but more than worth it in my view. Not yet 100% complete in this pic but more than half .  Once the inset was 100% complete... I trimmed excess white fabric from the back and the new top became ready to quilt.