Thank you all for the suggestions! I can't tell you how much help you all are to me; without this wonderful group I would probably get "stuck" and pretty discouraged at times.
I've been experimenting again this morning and here's what I am experiencing at this point:
The eyelashes have disappeared; I adjusted the tension a bit, and am concentrating on keeping my speed of travel consistent on the curves. The curves don't look so good right now, but the stitches are MUCH better.
Regarding the left to right vs. right to left; a straight stitching line in either direction seems to work fine as far as stitch quality is concerned, but I'll keep this advice in mind if I start to have problems. I am noticing that I can make smoother curves going left to right. I don't know if this just is a coordination problem, or if the direction of travel of the machine has something to do with it.
I'm still not happy with the movement of the carriage across the joint in the tracks and will be looking for other options for one-piece continuous track material.
And, last but not least, I need to PRACTICE!!! When I look back at my early attempts at FMQ, they weren't so great either. Right now I can't even stitch over the same line twice when trying to make feathers... On the other hand, designs that require straight lines either left to right or forward and back are much easier than with FMQ.
Thanks again! I'll keep you posted as to how it's going, and maybe someday soon, I'll have a piece worth posting a pic of off this Handi Quilter. :thumbup: