petthefabric

What a difference a day made. You made a lot of improvement.
There's a lot of good suggestions here. These were some of my favorites.
Be kind to yourself. Encourage yourself. Take breaks. Loosen up you body-dance. Breath. Play instramentals. Good posture/ergonomics. Take a class. Machiners gloves. Repositioning hands. Practice, practice, practice.

Here's my additional suggestions. Use a product under the fabric on the bed of the machine that allows the fabric to move easier, such as Supreme Glider or Sew Slip.

When I'm learning a new pattern this is my process: get a photo copy of the pattern on paper. With a round point draw the pattern on the paper (no marking, just follow the line). Do it again until you feel comfortable, or even past comfortable to sloppy bored. Now you should be drawing like you write, without thinking, it's become part of you muscle memory. Get a fresh piece of paper. Draw it with ink until you feel comfortable. Now get a practice quilt sandwich about 18" sq. Go to the machine and stitch it over and over until you feel comfortable. You'll find the groove.

Take breaks. Set a timer if you need to.

Go as fast or slow as you want. Single stitch quilting is hard to make a smooth line, it's a little too slow. You need control so don't let the machine run away on it's own, that's too fast. Somewhere inbetween.

Sewflower

Practice and more practice. Its not how fast or slow you go but how steady you can maintain. It helps to be above your machine. Like driving you need to look ahead and not behind or right at you foot. Marking also helps like when we learned penmanship. Good luck!

judi wess

All of the above and...try to take a deep breath and relax. When I stop worrying about what my hands are doing and let my eyes do the work, it looks so much better. This is kind of like driving, your eyes will tell the hands what to do. Did that make any sense?

maviskw

One of the most important things is to have your NEEDLE DOWN when you stop to reposition. Try to stop at a spot that won't show if your start-up doesn't exactly match the flow of last stitches. I have "walked" my fingers to the next spot, but it's too easy to make a mistake doing that.

You need STICKY FINGERS. You can buy the gloves or use the vinyl food service gloves. Holes in the gloves don't matter, as long as there is enough of the glove left to make most of the fingers sticky.

Make baby quilts and lap quilts for charity for practice. Even large potholders or placemats work. Someone could use them. I know I would be ripping out the practice stitches to save all that fabric and batting. LOL

rprue

Are you using gloves to help grip the fabric? I use glycerine instead and it helps control the fabric.

Mkotch

Sit up higher than you usually do so you can see better and won't slouch.

Try FMQ in a straight line, from side to side. Once you have mastered that, then try going the opposite way. Then meander or do swirls. I was taught with cursive e's and l's - you can try alternating also. It takes time and practice. Have fun! I made a lot of quilts for my dog when I first started!

katybob

Try to keep your eye on where you're going rather than on the needle. Easier said than done, but it makes a huge difference.

salederer

One tip besides practice, practice, is to make sure all your fabric is on a table even with your machine. If material goes over the side and on to floor, it pulls and messes up your tension. Put as many tables, ironing board or whatever else you can find to keep fabric even with machine.

narnianquilter

Thanks for all the suggestions you guys! I really appreciate it. Here's to learning new things!

fayeberry

I agree with QuiltE. You will get better practice on large pieces. I used several large pieces of muslin and batting bought on sale. Yes, materials cost a little, but it was well worth it. Those practice pieces are still in my sewing room and when I need to practice a different something I still use them. Eventually they will be padding for the dog crate.