I once heard or read somewhere when you’re doing a new to you process or method, don’t work your quilt or project linear left to right or top to bottom if you can help it. As you progress your skills will improve and refine and it will come out more uniform to distribute your efforts throughout the piece over time.
I am doing some hand quilting now and have followed this guidance. I started stitching a vertical line in the 4th column, then did the 2nd, then 6th, then the 3rd etc., just bouncing back and forth across the quilt.