Beautiful quilt. no real answers from me. I long arm quilts and often do ones with embroidery and applique. most people want have those applique pop so I usually will stitch around the applique, then do a pretty dense quilting in the background (white). But if you are wanting to hand quilt, do you really need a hoop? I'm not a handquilter, but a couple of friends are and neither use a hoop--just baste very well ahead of time.