Scraplady

Aside from PRACTICE, the best FMQ advice I ever got was to RELAX. A fellow guild member once said, "Start every session with a glass of wine!" Music also helps a lot. I used to have to constantly remind myself to drop my shoulders and take a breath now and then.

The other thing that really helps me is adequate support for the quilt. For a large project, I set up a small table behind and another beside my sewing table to take all the extra weight of the quilt. An ironing board works too. Then I "puddle" the quilt around the machine and make sure the section I'm working on nice and flat. I make sure that small section (about one square foot) can move freely.

I've also concluded that FMQ is like handwriting. No two quilters will have the same style. My loops and flowers are not going to look exactly like yours, and that's okay. Once I stopped trying to quilt like everyone else and allowed my own style to develop, it became a lot easier and I now actually LIKE what I do. Quilting should be fun! We are way too hard on ourselves.

sheri

When I first started to do FMQ I used a slow speed on the machine and moved my fabric too fast, then I was told to use a faster speed and move the quilt slow, I had to do a lot of practice adjusting the speed of my machine and hands, but finally found the best combination for me. I hope this helps you.

LynnVT

I am still a newbie, practicing on my HQ Sweet 16, which is a sit-down quilting machine. Basically works like your home machine, but waaay longer throat, and it has no feed dogs. I use rubberized garden gloves. My trick to start, after using muslin sandwiches, is to get cheap panels (someone gave me a large printed panel), and just follow the lines. It helped me gain control and ended up looking kind of cute. I filled in areas like the freehand shingles on a birdhouse roof and lines for clapboards on the birdhouse. You can see some pics in my photo album, Lynn's quilts: http://www.quiltingboard.com/members...bums18252.html Just keep practicing and enjoy the process even when the result is not perfect.

Holice

Practice,practice,practice on FMQ doesn't make perfect unless you have first learned the basics of the technique. No one learns to swim without learning the strokes.

fireworkslover

Everyone says to practice but before you start stitching you need to draw on paper, a chalkboard, dry erase board, plastic sheets, whatever you can find. Practice drawing to get the muscle memory in your hand and your brain. Knowing where to go next was a hurdle for me to get over and not worry about getting stuck in a corner. I'm a very visual learner, so watching someone else move their quilt thru their machine is very helpful for me. I love watching Leah Day on her 100's of videos stitching out 100's of designs. She's an awesome teacher. She has her own website as well as a Craftsy instructor. I highly recommend them both. Then make up lots of practice sandwiches, with solid or a near solid fabric on one side. Start out using contrasting thread. Try to master one design before you go on to another. Try to do some fmq everyday. Then practice some more. For sure, practice on a practice piece before you go to a project. Use it to try out your thread, tension, design, etc. It's OK to mess up on that instead of your quilt.

AmyFreeMotionQuilting

Practice, practice, practice. And if you're getting tired of hearing that, try practice, persistence, and patience. Drawing and doodling sesigns works wonders for improving FMQ. Not just muscle memory, but also learning how to get into and out of tight quilting spots. Gloves or some other grippy method is essential, as is having a good, flat, smooth surface to quilt on.

To keep from wasting too much fabric and batting in the early stages, try using a fairly tight woven fabric for the quilt sandwich and a large needle, but NO thread! You should still see the path of needle holes enough to get a feel for what you are doing. A quick press will remove the holes and you can start over.

Leah Day as others have mentioned has great ideas for fillers, increase the scale when first starting out. Everybody has their own style too, find what works for you. Designs based on the piecing is marker friendly and less random than fillers, so you know where you're going. Choose designs that have good places to stop. I don't consider the regular stipple to be a good design to learn on because it is so random and doesn't have good places to stop and reposition your hands.

Frankly, I think my stipple looks like crud, but I can feather all day long.....

There are a lot of great sites out there and videos on youtube too. There's always something new to learn! I have tips and such on my blog, but I guess I'm not supposed to link to it here as that's considered self-promotional.....

Holice

What part of Ohio do u live