I did Christmas applique Santa placemats for DGD's and used minky for the beard...lots of fluff when cutting around the appl pieces, but worked just fine. I used temp spray to hold down the minky on the placement lines, then stitched around, then trimmmed. The final stitches showed up just fine (I laid a piece of washaway over the area so the stitches wouldn't sink in, and it just tears away cleanly).