I am still a newbie, practicing on my HQ Sweet 16, which is a sit-down quilting machine. Basically works like your home machine, but waaay longer throat, and it has no feed dogs. I use rubberized garden gloves. My trick to start, after using muslin sandwiches, is to get cheap panels (someone gave me a large printed panel), and just follow the lines. It helped me gain control and ended up looking kind of cute. I filled in areas like the freehand shingles on a birdhouse roof and lines for clapboards on the birdhouse. You can see some pics in my photo album, Lynn's quilts:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/members...bums18252.html Just keep practicing and enjoy the process even when the result is not perfect.