These are great! I love the "right sides together"! I was working on a mini quilt block today and using Thangles (for the first time). I was supposed to put a dark and a light fabric together and the paper Thangle on top. Once I forgot the light strip and sewed the Thangle to only one piece of fabric. Another time the fabrics weren't right sides together. Very frustrating!
My favorite tip has already been shared and that is starting/stopping on a small piece of fabric. That saves a lot of time and thread.
I guess another tip is to shop around. My sister is making her first quilt and we stopped at Michael's craft store and their 24x36 mat was $129.99. I didn't know how much it should be but knew that was way too much. Found one at Joann's for $29.99 using the 40% off coupon. Nowhere near the Michael's price even without the coupon. We also bought some OTT natural-light light bulbs at Home Depot and put them in our own lamps. Way cheaper than buying the whole OTT lamp.