Good for you! I, too, am a beginner when it comes to FMQ. My first step beyond STID and straight lines was to follow the tracing of a couple of stencils I made. They were a large and a small daisy-like flower shape and a leaf shape, both of which were in the fabric. The background was pink and I used pink thread so it wasn't too obvious.
Next I did stippling on the busy background of another quilt. This was after a LOT of practice drawing it on a white board and erasing, drawing and erasing, drawing and erasing. And then stitching on lots and lots of practice squares. It did get easier. Again, the thread matched the background well so nothing was too obvious.
Now I'm making a baby quilt with a variety of very bright squares interspersed with white patches of alphabet letters and pictures. No matter what color I use for the quilting, it will show a lot. I'm thinking of doing loops with maybe one heart.
I'll be practicing on the white board and sandwiches before I tackle the quilt!
What kind of quilting are you doing? I want to eventually tackle feathers. I did a small wall hanging that has a large heart-shaped feather in the middle, but this was hand quilted as part of a class.
Good luck in your future endeavors!