Hi Elaine,

Yes, that's one way to do it. Alternately, you could rinse each design before joining them together. I think I personally lean toward stitching before rinsing. While you stitch the blocks together, you will need to use a zig-zag or similar wide stitch, in order to stitch two blocks together at a time. When you wash the stabilizer away, the lace sections will be held together by your zig-zag stitches.

Sorry for all the confusion. I thought these were ornament-type blocks, with only the colored parts stitched on water soluble stabilizer and I just couldn't figure out how you would be able to stitch the stabilizer squares together and then wash. I did a closer look at the designs and now realize that there is background stitched around the colored design. Thanks for your patience with me. I'm putting these on my wish list!

Oh, I understand now. I'm glad you figured it out -- I had not even thought to consider that the white background square of lace around each ornament might be basically invisible on some screens! I think you will enjoy them when they make it to wish granted status :)

I know, it seems like magic! But the fibrous water soluble stabilizer (Hemingworths' Hot water Wash-Away) really does stand in for fabric and disappear from around the design at the same time. It's my favorite no-show stabilizer.

Heather is right about the free standing lace, too. It's basically digitized so that the threads are woven over and around each other, so that they won't come apart, even if you stitch them on completely removable stabilizer, like Aquafilm.

Hi, Elaine. Thanks for the question! The stabilizer doesn't completely dissolve-- enough of the stabilizer should remain to maintain the integrity of the design. Also, freestanding designs are specially digitized so they have stability in and of themselves. So, no, embroidering on fabric is not necessary.

I hope this helps!

~Heather
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