Your 1st attempt is not bad! Not bad at all! You should see my 1st ones...I'm saving them just so I can look back when I'm thinking that all my quilting is horrible. You've been given great tips so far, here are a few more.
1. If you can't move your quilt freely...you can't quilt it! You should be able to move it around with a very light touch, no shoving, pushing pulling etc. when you get situated in the area you want to work on. If your movement of the quilt is jerky, your quilting will be jerky.
2. Wear quilting gloves, or if you don't like them, cut up that sticky cabinet liner stuff into squares, use the finger tips, grab handfuls of the quilt, whatever works well for you, but you can't move it smoothly without traction.
3. When you start up from a stop, take a single stitch in the same hole...it will disguise your start up and make sure you are in line.
4. DOODLE, DOODLE, DOODLE!! With a pencil and paper. It will build muscle memory and that is what you are looking for.
5. Don't believe people when they tell you that you cannot quilt a large quilt on a domestic machine. I do it all the time.