Well, the thing is since the squares aren't uniform the tails aren't either. So its more like a scattering of tails. When you say "tack" do you just mean a type of stitch that doesn't really go anywhere. Does that make sense? I have a design stitch on my machine that looks like a 1/4" circumference circle, filled in. Could I use that stitch? I hope I make sense. I don't want to tie from the back, because then I won'd know where the stitch comes up to the front. I'm not sure how it would look if there were tiny little stitches through the shirt faces. I was trying to avoid going through the designs of the shirts and tie just in the corners. But then some shirts are much larger so I would need to tie in those shirts because the shirt face is larger than 10". Ugh...what to do!