Learning to Quilt

So I don't really need to learn the basics, although that's where I'm going to start, I want to learn to quilt without the help of my stitch regulator. And guess what!? There just happens to be not one, but two, quilt-a-longs going on right now to help me do just that! I have ALWAYS shied away from quilting without the stitch regulator because it has done a pretty good job in the past. Well, something changed on the last quilt I did, my grandmas, because there were all sorts of issues with the quilting. Many of the issues weren't the fault of the stitch regulator, but some of them were. I was warned by a sewing machine salesman that the BSR had it's inadequacies, and one of them was quilting on red or purple fabrics. It also seems to have trouble doing any dark pinks and some light pinks. Well, it just so happens that I kind of like most of those colors. As I was quilting one of the centers of the stars (with my free motion flower), the machine kept.skipping.stitches.

(Up close quilting of the star center)

(It looked pretty cool on the other side too)

And it drove me crazy, like ready to pull out my hair crazy. And I almost threw my machine and it's highly-touted BSR right out the window! That's when I knew I needed to learn to quilt like a big girl. Without any help. So, I've joined both quilt-a-longs in an effort to learn to quilt all by myself. In a way, I'm kind of worried. The reason I bought the Bernina 440 QE was for the BSR. No other machine could offer that. Now I wish I had learned to quilt without the BSR and instead opted for a machine with a larger throat. Ahhh, there's always the next machine.
So, I'm joining The Free Motion Quilting Project and SewCalGal as they share their insights into FMQ. Here goes nothin'.