Thank you ladies for the good feedback. I will definitely use some of the designs, get some garden gloves at least and adjust my speed control. I feel very encouraged by all the comments. One question I have now probably shows how naive I am about FMQ since I was switching between my 1/4 inch pressure foot (to outline the stars) and the fmq foot to do the meander. Do most of you use the fmq foot to do straight stitching or SITD?