I have a fear of ripping:D, so I want to make sure what I'm going to do is right, before I do it. So, I agonize over it way too much. Quilters often say, "Better done than perfect." and I have to keep reminding myself of that!
Just go for it!

Watson

I've never experienced fear of anything sewing related. If I mess up so what?

The only item I hesitated at was with doing stippling. I found it much easier to follow drawn lines when doing FMQ. You learn to drive a car, it really is the same. First, find a speed that you are comfortable with (not fast like on a freeway) that you can feel or hear from your machine. Observe the speed at which the machine moves the fabric at that speed. Then when starting FMQ, hit that speed and try to move the quilt at the same speed that the machine would move it. Try not to stop on curves and look a few inches to where you are going, NOT at where you are. I was lucky to have taken a class from Harriet Hargrave and she improved my FMQ.

I looked at a store bought quilt on a friend's bed. She paid $400 for it and so proud of it. It had puckers and some of the stitching was off. I felt better about the few that I did. A whole lot better!!

Some quilts I just jump right in and start FMQing, figuring out what I'm going to do as I go along. Other quilts may sit sandwiched for a couple of days or more while I'm trying to decide what kind of designs will work best for them. I view "messing up" as an opportunity to go in another direction with the design or perhaps as an opportunity to re-bond with my seam ripper LOL. Anyway, I don't worry about making mistakes--it's just fabric and thread.

Rob

' cause you can put in a thousand bad stitches in the blink of an eye? LOL
I'm ALWAYS hesitant whenever I start a new piece.
Push through it and relax.

I have the same "irrational hesitation". I do just fine with my FMQ. I think it's because it's my least favorite part of quilting. I just want to get onto piecing my next quilt, and the "quilting" takes me away from that. Yes I know! That's totally irrational :-)

while still quilting on my DSM I always felt like I hadn't done a good enough job on my sandwiching and would get puckers--so kept rechecking that. And frankly, doing a larger quilt on the machine killed by arms and neck so badly that I'd procrastinate starting for that reason, too.

I am the same way. Every one of them scares me BUT the price of sending them out to be long arm quilted scares me too. :) Plus I like that I can say that I did the entire thing myself. Its a lot of work thats for sure

I sometimes feel the same, especially if it has been a long time between FMQ on my DSM... I have a stack of 12 inch sandwich blocks (from Leah Day's class last year) and I pull one or two out to practice the design I want to use on the quilt and it gives me that "a-ha" moment that I haven't forgotten how to FMQ....I've just gotten rusty.