Try one of the new tear away stabilizers. that would give you more stability and reinforce the fabric and should just tear away at the end. some people use something on the top and the bottom. A tear away underneath and dissovable one on top.

If you're doing HAND embroidery, I'm not sure using a tear away is a good idea. It would very likely loosen your stitching when you try to remove it. I haven't used the soluble for hand work either, but it might be worth a try if you don't want a product that will stay in the finished quilt.

I'm just watching this topic, because I always use interfacing for machine embroidery, but never for handwork. I would do the embroidery on a larger piece of fabric, then cut.

That makes sense Moonpi, Wish I'd thought of it before I had cut!

That is a good point t-Bug! My embroidery skills won't win any prizes and probably shouldn't risky any loosening of the stitches.

At this point, I'm thinking I will baste the batting on, embroider, then attach the backing and then quilt.

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

Lucky patsys mum no it is not hard to embroider without a hoop, just dont pull your stitches too tight and check by laying out flat every now and again to see that it isnt puckering or pulling

Someone in my quilt guild did this quilt in blue. It is wonderful. I liked it so much I went online and ordered the kit. Was unhappy that the patterns are not iron-ons. Will have to use my neighbors light box to transfer all that embrodery work. Hope it works out. Did you have to transfer the pattern, too?