Ah. ok. Thank you! Maybe I'll just try putting the decorative stitching on the binding first & then sew it onto the quilt.
I've seen photos where people stitched a decorative design on to machine bind through all layers, but I'm sure they used a thinner batting.
The whole quilt is only 12x18" so it's not a huge deal to bind, but trying to pick out decorative stitches is a nightmare. Worse than having to remove stay stitching, imho.