I have a Gammill that my husband purchased for me last summer - I am finally getting to the point that someone paid me to do their quilt! I had never done any quilting - always sent mine out to be done. I always use my stitch regulator - just too scared not to - lol. I love doing meandering - both with and without loops - learned how to add hearts/stars too. I can do pantographs - have done some, but they seem harder than freehand from the front of the machine. I was told to always look ahead in the panto and not to worry about staying exactly on the lines, just close and not to jerk back into line if I went off. For me, the hardest part of the panto is getting each new line set up.
I just finished a quilt (trip around the world pattern) recently that was made from polyester and had a sheet for the backing - the quilt shop owner that sent it to me said I did a great job and that the quilt was even square! We had agreed on just doing a loose meandering on this quilt and another longarmer told me to be careful going over all the seams - not too fast, not too slow - great advice - but scared the daylights out of me. I ended up laying a piece of freezer paper over the width of the quilt and took a sharpie to draw a meandering line across the entire quilt - it took several tries to get one I liked - then I used it like a pantograph on the back of the machine. Using it like a panto took my eyes off the front of the quilt so I kept my speed even even over the bulky seams.
I also started out with a sandwich of muslin - drew some grid lines on it and tried something new in each box - time to do it again - now that I have done some I want to try some new ideas and perfect the ones I am already doing.
I got my machine used and it came with a lot of bobbins that were already wound so I use them when I am doing practice stitching - I love the idea of stitching without thread - but, when you use different color threads you can stitch the same design over and over in the same area and see your improvement easily.
Hope this all makes sense - to me it really boils down to practice, practice, practice. I was able to practice on almost 30 charity quilts this year!