For my DGS's crazy quilt - since I had a lot of darker fabrics in it - I traced the motif on to plain white tissue paper. It's easy to see thru for tracing, easy to remove when the embroidery is finished and there are no marking lines on the fabric to try to remove. I did probably 40 or so motifs on that crazy quilt - some very detailed some not - using that method and didn't have any problems, plus it's cheap...you may even have some already!!