This may sound crazy, but I found some examples of stippling that I liked that looked like water rippling, printed them out, and tried to duplicate them on squares of fabric. It was sitting down and not knowing where to go that was driving me crazy.
Also, even tho' I have the Bernina with the BSR, my machine also has an On/Off button and a speed control. So, I unplug the foot control, use my needle up/needle down button to bring the bobbin thread up, then hit the On button. Then I move the fabric around. When I'm finished, I hit the off button and I'm done.
If you do your practice squares using the Insulbrite or using the teflon fabric as your backing, you can put a narrow binding on them and you have handmade potholders.