I find it much easier with gloves than without. I tried some cheap garden gloves, but found them too big and too hot to wear. I love the Machinger's gloves. I use them all the time!

Practice, practice, practice! I am FMQ-ing a baby quilt right now, and I had to tear out some (but not all) of the "eyelashes." It also helps to set your machine to a slow speed. I never knew my machine even had a slow speed until I was halfway into quilting my current quilt. Wow, does a slow speed help me get around curves without eyelashes!! I also use gloves and couldn't do the FMQ without them.

It does take lots of practice. sometimes I feel like i haven't gotten any better over the years, but i know that i have. Except after the other day- I was doing the serpentine stitch on the seams and they I switched to FMQ. i couldn't figure out why my curves were all spastic. Then i realized i didn't change the stitch to stright stitch! I had to rip out two sides! good thing it was a small quilt!

You really will get the hang of it. Just keep at it. My first practice piece started out a disaster, but ended up kinda okay. I could definitely tell where I started and where I finished...LOL!! Next couple of pieces went great. Now, I'm trying to FMQ (just stipple) a queen sized quilt, and I have been thru 4 pkgs of needles -- I keep breaking them, and I can figure out why. Have rethreaded, changed needles, checked/adjusted tension, quilt not caught on anything, etc (I even tried another machine!!!). The needle keeps hitting the throat plate and breaking. So, I put it away for now, and will try again another day.

try using a stencil and a pounce pad with the ultimate pounce chalk( the iron off type) I use em all the time to get the proper technique of FMQing then I will go on to free hand FMQing. When I first tried to free hand stippling I was really lousy at it now after lots of pratice I know I could to it. I made 75 dog coats with a stencil quilting pattern for pratice patterns.

The one tip I can give you is SLOW down at first!! get used to doing it before you try to speed up!! like a saying goes one needs to learn how to crawl before you can walk or run.

Set your speed to the lowest setting on your machine pratice getting your stitch length the same IMHO that is the hardest thing to do!!

keep practicing , try putting on some music that you can just flow along with while FMQ, do you have the gloves ,and remember to keep your speed at what you can handle to keep up with the speed you move your material

practice practice !

It doesn't happen over night - practice,practice,practice.

My favorite advice is the glass of wine or bottle of beer and music! I think it reminds me that this is supposed to be FUN. Practice, and practice more. I agree that gloves are important - with the gloves you won't need to use so much pressure with your hands, that will keep your neck and shoulders a little more relaxed. If you start feeling tense, it is time to get up and walk around a bit! I have tried several types of gloves and have machingers - but actually what I really like to use are nitrile or surgical gloves. They are 'tacky' and I can really feel what is under my fingertips. I also have a small white board and will draw the pattern that I want to use, and trace it over and over until I have muscle and brain memory. I have also used my large square ruler with white board markers - lay the ruler on top of the pattern you want to use or on the quilt and trace what pattern fits and trace over and over, until it feels comfortable. Wipe off the marker right away, I have never harmed my ruler(test markers on a small part of yours first), but quilttiludrop's idea for a piece of plexiglass is great! I may have to check my garage for a left over piece of one of those for practice!

"Oh and go slower when doing a curve or you end up with eyelashes underneath (ask me how I know that!!"

I always wondered what those things were called.

That happens to me sometimes. Less now than it used to. I was told I was probably moving the quilt around too fast. Try slowing the hand movement down a bit. Hope it helps!