Jamie Wallen suggests that you pick one motif and practice just it during your practice time until you can do it in your sleep.
I worked on meander which I found very difficult until I watched a lady that said to key on two things...keep the spacing the same between the lines, no matter what size you decide to make it and if you get stuck and don't know where to go next, reverse your direction and draw a balloon capital letter H , F or T until you can get going again. It worked for me.
The next one I chose a Paisley because it has a rounded part and a pointed part and some practice on making them different sizes all in one motif, plus it is really versatile to fill in background space with. I made a lot of really bad Paisleys, but eventually it just clicked and I could do them upside down and backwards, so I moved onto Spirals which I still struggle with when trying to fill a background, but I'm working on it.
Anyhow...my point is, take some time...15 minutes a day is great...and pick one and work on it.
Also, I prefer to have a practice sandwich that is dark on one side and light on the other with light thread so that I can see on the dark side how things look in detail and on the light side how things would really look on a quilt if my thread and fabric colours were the same. I guarantee it looks a lot better than you think!
Watson