Get some heavy plastic from Joann's or some quilter's plastic from your local quilt shop, about 18" square is easy to work with and put painters tape along the edges (so you don't accidentally go off the plastic!), grab a dry erase marker and a quilt top - put the plastic on top of the quilt and practice different designs with your dry erase marker, erase the design with a little piece of batting and try another design. Free-motion is not difficult and by practicing you build muscle memory. If you need help with designs, check out the websites of quilters and try to copy what they have done.
As far as your thread breaking, check out Superior Thread's website and look at the "education" tab - Dr. Bob has all kinds of fabulous information on there for fabric artists. I love the King Tut, Rainbow, Lava, Bottom Line and So Fine, as well as their metallics. I can run all of them on my LA with no problems. Yes, the thread is expensive, but not having thread breaks is worth it to me - I do enough tying and burying knots without the thread breaking and adding more!!!