I have been sewing (my own clothes) since I was about 12 years old & made one
very simple quilt when I was in high school (hand pieced and quilted). It was made from scrap fabric that I had left over from dresses that I had made in high school. The quilt was a simple scrappy with 2" squares. Then when I was 58 years old a friend of mine took up machine quilting & helped me get started in it. It was difficult for me to accept machine quilting as all I have ever heard of was hand pieced/quilted quilts. Machine quilting almost seemed like "cheating" to me.
Anyway, she convinced me to learn & with her help & a quilt class that we went to together I was off & running. Then I watched tons of tutorials online & learned from other quilters on quilting forums. I've never gotten the hang of FM quilting but I love it on quilts. I'm mainly a stitch in ditch quilter but I do use some templates at times & do a little stippling.