Hi,  I am new to Inkscape and just want to thank all the open source developers for such an amazing program.  I have done several things and they were easy and enjoyable.

I do have a problem though - I have a simple black blob jpg image which is a free image off the internet.  there is a frame very close to the blob and I would like to remove.  I am cutting a stencil on a Cricut machine from it and the frame is too close and makes it useless.

Any help would be appreciated please. 

Thanks,  Ali

If I've understood... Draw a white rectangle over the part you want to preserve. Then Object/mask/set.