I found the book, Free-Motion Quilting Made Easy: 186 Designs from 8 Simple Shapes by Eva Larkin, to best fit the way my brain and hands work. The idea is to break your quilting down to 4 1/2" square sections and use various combinations of 8 basic shapes (oval, loop, lopsided figure 8, tulip, heart, triangle, diamond, flower) to create your motifs. She starts off with the bare basics for beginners and includes lots of exercises. She gives diagrams for how to quilt each of the 186 designs and includes a chart of combinations with the page numbers of the designs. She then gives ideas of how to use the designs for all-over quilting, and includes a gallery of quilts as examples.