So far all of the reply posts are excellent suggestions and there are tons of YouTube videos. I also like QuiltE’s suggestion about keeping notes. I also practice on larger sandwich pieces instead of smaller ones.

Pat Sloan recently published an excellent book called Teach Me to Machine Quilt...it is currently on sale 40% off at Connecting Threads. It is very detailed and she also has a Podcast on Mondays to listen in.

Use a backing fabric that has a pattern of some kind so any not so perfect stitches will hardly show.

If you have a speed control on your machine, I suggest figuring out what speed you are doing well at and then lowering the speed control to that speed so that you can put your foot right down on the pedal and just go. This way you only have to worry about hand speed while you are getting used to it.

Watson

Sometimes it just comes. I had a table topper in which I had used a too-thick batt. A friend told me to quilt it quite heavily to tame it. I had never done meander, but just started moving it around, and I couldn't believe how easy it was. The table topper looks beautiful. If you look closely you can see that in some sections the quilting is more dense than others, but it takes a little time and knowing what you are looking for. It even got a blue ribbon at the county fair. (Not much competition. LOL)

Thanks everyone! You all gave me a lot of good hints. I ordered the Pat Sloan book yesterday and am signed up for a class at the nearest quilt shop. In the mean time I will play around some more with my walking foot. I made 6 Christmas quilts for the grands this year, but the actual quilting was just so, so. I am sure they will never notice, but it bugged me a bit. My walking foot was rather noisy. Is that normal? I think it was on right, but not sure. The little arm was up on the screw of the shank. Again, thanks for all of your support!

Yes, my walking foot makes a lot of noise. It sounds like you are on the right track!

I think this video by Patsy Thompson is one of the very best for someone just starting out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0IPcHoGW6M I have to say, however, that basting a quilt on a vertical wall doesn't seem workable to me. I don't understand why the fabric wouldn't stretch and distort under the pull of gravity. So I ignore that part, but love her careful and detailed coverage of all the steps to quilting on the DSM, and her encouraging words about it being possible to do this with a rather large quilt. I found she was right about that, and might never have been brave enough to try it without her.

Your local class will be wonderful, but having a video that you can stop and start and review many times will be helpful, too, especially if you tend to sew at odd hours as I sometimes do. I like several Craftsy videos, too. Before buying one, I like to look through the gallery of students' work for a class that I'm considering. You can tell a lot about the style of quilting that will be offered and maybe judge whether it's too advanced or too basic for your needs, or just not what you're trying to learn right now.

Well some of the the latest models are very use friend and I don't think you need any coaching to learn quilting. Some quilting machines are very beginner friendly. See here. Buy a quilting machine, practice and you are ready to go.

Best beginner Machine quilting book ever... https://www.amazon.com/Heirloom-Mach...4KS6SMHFZ45Z6H

You can get it used on Amazon for basically the price of shipping. Well worth having in any library.

I also agree with Prism that straight line quilting with a walking foot is also a great way to get started and relatively easy. I used to do a lot of it and it is amazing how good an all over cross hatch can look. I also like to echo quilt seam lines and used the edge of the walking foot as a guide, lining it up with the seam so the stitched line ends up being 1/4" or 1/8" away from the seam. I found it much easier than SITD.

That said, there came a time when I realized I wasn't very good at sit down domestic machine quilting and to be quite frank, I didn't enjoy it at all. For my "fancy" quilts, I hand quilted. In 2010 I got a long arm and I haven't looked back since. I found that the way my brain works, frame quilting was much easier for me than moving the quilt under the machine needle.

If you like video classes, consider signing up for a month of Craftsy Unlimited. I think it's only $15/mo - you can then check out lots of different classes. I own quite a few, and seem to learn something from just about everyone.