You can use just about anything including paper, card and wood! It just depends on what you want to make. Dense designs work better on tougher fabrics and you need very light redwork designs for paper and card. The Christmas trees are freestanding lace so you stitch them on water soluble stabiliser (WSS)

Don"t feel helpless we all have been at the beginning, if your not sure just get on here and ask. It is best to test stitch your design on a piece of similar fabric as you want to put your design on. There are a lot to tutorials on placement, fabric, stabilizers and threads on the net. Do a search and you will find them I am sure. I will try to look later today. Look on some of the sites and they have free downloads for these topics. I believe there are some here on Cute. Have fun it is an adventure and you will be addicted. Just ask us and someone will answer. Have fun relax we all started out at some point. Suedewsbury gave you some good info. Sara

The christmas trees are called free standing lace(FSL) You do not need material on those. You use badge master or a thick wash away stabilizer and sew on that. For other projects that are just embroidery I use cottons, chino's, muslins,polar fleece, sweat shirts material,felt, terry cloth etc... depends on the project you are doing. Hope this helps you a bit to get going. Suzanne

We all been there I do not consider myself a pro( i wish) but you are in the right spot ask and there will be an answer or more, I like cotton, any cotton, and silk, to do my embroidery, at the beginning I went to every tutotial i could find in the internet, that helpd me a lot, and remember there is NEVER a stupid question, do not be afraid to ask.

Basically, if it doesn't move, embroider it. LOL

Believe it or not, I have seen embroidery done on toilet roll and it looks stunning, the cuties here will tell you because many of them have doen it and they come out beautiful.