I got a long arm 6 weeks ago and several friends told me to load a plain (and cheap) quilt on it and then quilt the whole thing in one color thread, and then re-load and quilt again in another thread color, and so on. Basically just practice every design we can think of. So far I'm still working in the same color thread. One friend told me that her "picnic" quilt weighs a ton due to the 40lbs of thread in it! But once she's worked it over she was so much more confident. So that's what I'm working on, too!