Thank you ladies, I appreciate your insights. I'm willing to try this and see how it goes. It will be a learning experience. I've done embroidery most of my life, but it was fully filled in embroidery and the only knots were french knots. Doing redwork pretty much requires a knot to start and stop though. That will be hard to get used to! Anyway, I will try with a fabric or thin batting in the back and see how I like it.