Ah, so it's not just me and I use a Brother as well. For some reason it will "kick" the fabric out from under the foot and I end up sewing right off the edge of the seam. I did see a hint on sewing with strips and it was to let the strip feed over the finger of the opposite hand that is feeding it into the machine. BY lifting the end every so slightly, it seems to feed in better but I still have the problem with it "kicking" the line of stitching out.
I've also used the masking tape as a guide and it worked quite well. I've bought two seem guides and neither seem to do the job. And I'm in Maine as well so maybe our hands are frozen from this horrible winter????