Where I live at the moment there is only one shop in the country that sells stabilizer..So I purchased a roll of medium vilene 25 yards for $5.00 and I am using that for practicing and have also used it when I embroidered designs for a Christmas tree skirt and then just carefully cut away the excess vilene when finished.
For some reason the vilene does not stick hard to the fabric,maybe because I dont iron it for to long. Sometimes I iron the vilene on the fabric then when the hoop is placed on the machine slide another piece of vilene under the ironed on vilene..Because sometimes the fabric tends to pucker a bit in the hoop.
Also found some fabrics are thinner so I starch the fabric first..