Sorry to say that fabric starch won't make your fabric stiff enough to do machine embroidery. The stabilizer keeps the stitches from pulling the fabric into the design. You will be better off going with one of the other types of stabilizer. Some fabrics need to have a permanent stabilizer so that the design doesn't sag after wash and dry, some you can use the iron or wash away stuff. It just depends on what you want your end results to look like. At times I also use the sewing stabilizer (which is lots cheaper) depending on what I am using it for.