Skratchie

The thing is ... you DON'T "own" the skills right now. You won't "own" them till you learn them. Maybe you meant you aren't sure you have the ability to learn the skills, which is a different question, but you don't own them right now. I only consider myself as having, or owning, a skill once I've reached a point where I feel confident that I can recreate the end result, so it may just be a terminology/interpretation thing.

As others have said, it takes time to learn to do anything. To do it well takes a while longer, and for some, to be proficient can take a lifetime of practice. That said, we tend to be most critical of our own work. I did some FMQ in my last completed quilt and I thought it was ok but my mom thought it looked good. The person who bought it from me thought it looked fantastic. So it really is a matter of perspective.

And if you're throwing away your practice pieces, can you really say you're not improving? What are you comparing today's sample with to say that? I don't keep every single practice piece I do, but I do keep at least one every couple of weeks and put a date on it. I can take the samples out and compare them and see what is getting better and what still needs work.

Finally, if you're not consistently practicing the same design, you might feel like you're not making progress. I practice stippling all the time, because I figure that if I can master that one skill, I can move on to other stitches with more confidence.

The main thing is, giving up isn't going to get you where you want to go, so I'm happy to see that you've said you're going to keep trying. As I said before, you may not "own" the skills, but I'm sure you have the ability to learn them. :-)