practice, practice practice. even after almost 10 years i still on occassion load up a practice quilt to 'play on' when i first bought mine i bought a bolt of 90" wide muslin. i would cut off 2 - 2 yard pieces load them up with warm & natural batting and quilt away. gave us all the opportunity to try out the laser, pantos, free hand, writting, drawing....as each was taken off the frame it was either squared and a binding put on...play blankets for the kids/picnics car blankets ect. some went to the fire rescue dept. for emergency use and some instead of binding were cut into 4 pieces with the edges zig-zagged and gave those to the humane society. some of those practice quilts are still fun; i did find though as other people started using the machine, everyone likes to write their name so i kind of had to be careful what i did with them, but most of the time who ever was practicing kept their practice quilt to do with as they chose.