1- poor quality batting sucks. when my el cheapo batt fell apart and destroyed my project I learned my lesson!! I spent good money on the fabric but cheaped out on the batting and paid for it in money, frustration, and heartache! After that I went and got the baby/craft sizes of various brands and tried them until I found a consistently good quality favorite within my budget.
2- change your needles! I like to change about every project, maybe after a couple baby blankets or a few times during a bigger quilt. when I started sewing nobody mentioned about changing the needle and I must've overlooked it in the books I read, I'm ashamed to say I used ONE needle for my first year of sewing! when I figured it out sooo many issues disappeared! I get needles bulk on Amazon, way cheaper than JAF.
3-if you get upset or frustrated walk away from your machine! I yanked too hard at a birdsnest and ended up messing up my timing...expensive lesson! plus my shop was backed up so I was without my machine for nearly 2 months! If only I'd relaxed and then come back and rethreaded, etc....
4-don't listen to downers! I like bright fun fabrics and sewing/quilting teachers and classmates can be very rude about my fabric choices, I'm much more selective about classes and I've learned to ignore the haters, I'll do my art with whatever fabric I like
5- have a cup of tea and a favorite film on for FMQ, really makes a difference. Ripping out half a twin size FMQ sucks...