Ron, I downloaded a doily from the On-line Catalogue (Stock Illustrations: complex), resized on an A4 page and then created a Bitmap copy as 300 dpi PNG.
I cloned this and feathered. I vertically flipped and then butted the two images together.
I can see no blurring other than that of the desired feathering.
I can upload the file but it is easy enough to recreate.
Acorn
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