An Afternoon Stitching

I spent my afternoon with my Bernina. I'm still not very comfortable with freehand stitching. I'm not afraid of it, it's more a feeling that I suck at it. I know that time and practice will help to make perfect, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm ruining the progress I am making in fabric selection and piecing.

This piece is rather small. The whole thing with borders will be somewhere in the range of
18" x 24". The loop-the-loops on the green, silk background are rather small. My issue is how to keep the speed up, therefore creating even stitches and not run into the problem of running out of space as you are creating your loops. I'm sure I'll finally get the hang of it but I welcome any feedback. It's always a learning process.