I learned to long arm with my LQS for the same reasons. I just got tired of not being able to solve the problem of so much puckers on the backing. Of course I always expect some but it seemed like with each quilt I FMQ the puckers kept increasing. I realize that it is my sandwiching process. I can't be on the floor anymore and clamping the layers to the table was the problem. My quilts are large. Unclamp and reclamp to unpinned areas were where most of my problems were. I learned on a Handy Quilter 16. Which long arm machine did you learn on Kbiederman?