After years of struggle I'm finally beginning to get somewhere with FMQ. I start by making a large-ish practice piece with the same fabric and batting as my quilt. I then get the tension sorted, which can be difficult on my machine, but I'm slowly getting the measure of it, though I sometimes have to compromise on thread choices to get it to co-operate. I then practice my pattern - at the moment usually stippling or loops. I'm not well-co-ordinated and I have to accept that it can take my brain a while to "click" and get my hands moving in the right directions, so I may practice on paper first, then the practice piece. When I get to the quilt itself, I take several very deep breaths, say a quick prayer (the quilting angel must be very busy!), deliberately relax my shoulders - and just go for it. I pull the bottom thread up and take a few very small stitiches - and very slowly, or I tend to get a birds nest. Then I can speed up and into the pattern. Every now and then I check that I'm still breathing :-) :-) I wrote to Leah Day for advice a while ago, and one thing she said was - just put a quilt on your machine, with the same colour threads top and bottom so that mistakes don't show so much - and quilt it. Sounds so simple, but I realised that, for me anyway, she was right - I was so afraid of making mistakes that the tops were piling up while I put off quilting them. So I've gone for it, with tops that aren't particularly precious, and she's right - I settled down, began to enjoy myself, and my stitches quickly improved. The results aren't perfect - I won't be entering any shows - but they're not that bad either!