Prototyping an embroidery design

So there's this embroidery design I'm creating. For me it's all new and tricky, trying to get designs and fabric and needle and thread to all work together.

This project is an applique project, in which I applique an embroidered piece to a background piece. So I need placement lines, need to make sure the satin stitch will cover the fabric edge, and so on. 

So I decided to stitch out just some key areas - the largest curvy bits, the outline, and the width of the applique outline stitch. Thanks to the features of my nifty machine, I can just jump from one area of the design to another with the use of a stylus. 

And here's the result. Everything seems to fit nicely, although I might widen the applique satin stitch a bit.

The outer circle is a basting line, delineating the edge of the embroiderable area. The next oval is the applique line, and you can see 4 points where I checked the width of the satin stitch. 

All that mess in the middle were tricky bits of the actual design.

I like it when I get to plan a project and the prototype looks like everything will go fine.