Hello dunster, I don't know if you remember my name, I purchased two of your Diamond Log Cabin patterns. Unfortunately I haven't had time to make one yet. Your right, practice if the formost important tool to longarm quilting, but I think my biggest suggestion is to find you some nice longarm acrylic tools to work with and I pretty much wear out the blue washout pins by drawing on stencil designs and using pantographs. I did free motion quilting for ten years before I upgraded to a Statler. I still do some free motion quilting, but a lot of my work is done with digital designs. But I can tell you from experience of the last three years that it is just as much work to get the results I am looking for. Thank you so much for your wonderful compliments. Vivian