Lesson learned
I had no idea it took so much thread to do fmq. For practice, I bought a John Deere child's panel and matching flannel backing. I straight stitched around each picture and did a meander to fill in each panel, then did a free flowing design in the borders. I just had to go buy my THIRD spool of thread. I'm using the Gutterman polyester 100m-110 yds. That's almost $6 just for thread. I didn't buy a large spool to begin with because it's lime green and I didn't think I would use it for anything else.
Well, I learned my lesson and am getting pretty good at fmq so it's worth it. I was just surprised.