I do hand embroidery using a lot of Crabapple Hill designs/patterns. Their instructions call for using a muslin backing for most blocks but not for their tea towel patterns. The patterns for the towels just recommend being extra neat with your stitches so the backs will look ok. To me that just means not to travel very large areas and weave in your ends, starts and stops rather than making knots. Lynnie, I don't have any of my embroidered towels to show you since I gave them as gifts. I did one set with a Halloween design and another with snowmen. I thought they were really cute. Take a look at their website.