I got started by lots and lots of doodles with pencil and paper. It was a lot cheaper than making sandwiches of fabric and batting to practice on. I doodled large meanders, then medium ones and finally small ones. I doodled on newspapers, old envelopes, the backs of letters etc. until my hand/eye coordination was really comfortable with where to go and how not to get 'caught' in odd shapes. When I was really happy on paper, that was when I did the sandwich thing and praticed with fabric. At that point, I knew all about where to go with the pattern, so I only had to get the speed/stitch length sorted. Hope that helps.