No problem on my longarm, but when I'm using my domestic machine, I can't do it unless I'm using quilting gloves. They give you more control and grip on the fabric. DON'T FORGET TO RELAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep practicing! The average rule of thumb is about 8 hours of practice before you begin to learn. Your fingers and your brain have to learn to work together. Once it "sinks in" you will never forget.

www.theinboxjaunt.com has a lot of FMQ tutorials that are free. She shows a design and then stitch by stitch how to do them. The patterns are broken down to the base components. My FMQ has improved a great deal. She puts a new tutorial up every Tuesday and all of the past ones are available under tutorials.

Vera, theinboxjaunt website apparently isn't working because I tried it twice and didn't get it. Sounds interesting, though.

My first FMQ was on a bag we were making in a class. I wanted the bottom quilted, so I just started making loop-de-loops and was quite pleased with it. I think I practiced for all of 2 minutes. I still like the bottom of that bag, and now I have been doing leaves in the borders. One leaf points to the left; the next one to the right. Fun. Most of my quilts are loop-do-loops or back and forth lines to fill in a space.

As for quilting gloves, I couldn't do this without them, but you don't have to spend a lot of money on them until you are sure you like this process. I started with Latex Gloves: a box of 100 costs a buck or two. And it doesn't matter if they have holes in them, just as long as you have "sticky fingers". LOL They are even more comfortable after the hand part is mostly gone. Just be sure to wash your hands well after using them, as bacteria builds up inside them after a while. I was surprised to hear that you need to wash your hands after you take gloves off, but ask your doctor friends about that.

Leah Day is the greatest inspiration, I didn't want to be wasteful, so I made up about 50 !0" sandwiches with insulbrite in them, and later made them into potholders, and they went out as X-mas gifts. I got much better in all these sandwiches.
It was a lot of fun, also.

After a lot of clicking back and forth, I finally realized the original link is missing the word "the" even though "the" shows in the original post.

Try this one: http://theinboxjaunt.com/

:)

I got into theinboxjaunt, but couldn't get any of their tutorials to play. Then I went into www.daystyledesigns.com and found those tutorial work. Watched several, of which I will certainly try some. The section in which I found this was: "Independent Free Motion Quilting Designs", and I can't find that again either. LOL

I just bot a Pfaff GrandQuilter 1200 long arm from a friend. I have made one muslin sandwich to practice on. When I get to the end I just re-roll the whole thing, change top thread color (using up all my old spools!) so I can see what I am doing and keep going. So far I haven't had any trouble with thread breaking or needle issues. Guess when it gets tooooooo thick, I'll make another "sandwich" and keep going until my confidence level allows me to do a REAL quilt.... practice practice practice...... most important HAVE FUN !!

i watched videos on u tube then like everyone else i just practiced until i was at the point where i was comfortable the way i was doing my FMQ