No because I sweat a lot with my hands and I dont wanna wash it when I finished specially if I use over dye threads so for me its a big no, but if you wanna try...do whats make you happy
I typically choose projects so that the full design fits into a 14-inch hoop as I also am concerned about getting my project dirty. For a bigger project doing the stitching free hand I find at the end you need to block it to make the stitching straight and this is more difficult that just moving the hoop around the stitching.