I bought a tutorial a while back but it really didn't tell me anything that I hadn't already figured out on my own. I have learned the most from examining designs that were made by others. You can find a few free files here and there. I sewed them out on the machine to see how sturdy they were then examined the available properties in PE design and watched them in the stitch simulator a few times.

As far as skipping the tulle goes, your stitches need a "skeleton" to keep them from unraveling. The stocking at the bottom of the page at the link below shows an example of what I mean. There are running stitches that are sewn out right before and are eventually underneath the thick satin stitch lines giving the satin stitch something to hold on to.

Here is a link that might be useful: Free FSL stocking design

Thanks! I used Google Book Search to try and preview what was out there--not a whole lot.

So far it seems the strongest when I do three lines of stitching below a narrow satin stitch. I'm going to try doing pairs of lines under wider satin stitching next.