Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I need to find ways to continue to motivate myself & not feel discouraged. I'm on medium speed now and most stitches look really long. Some quilters say going faster should shorten the stitches, is this true? The quilting machine I'm using didn't make it all easier. I'm using Janome 6320 & I've been getting tension issues since I started, even the service centre couldn't figure out what's wrong. Perhaps it's time to upgrade my machine.