I'm new to quilting as well and my current machine that has a walking foot hangs up at intersections but I just finished my granddaughtes 3-d pinwheel. I stitched in a ditch around the blocks and down the middle both sideways and top to bottom of the pinwheel blocks; I also quilted around each pinwheel following the design of the pinwheel. Since it was for a child and would see the washing machine alot I wanted to to do more than the stitch in the ditch so that is why I did around the pinwheel. I'm considering putting stencil designs at each block intersection in the sashing and quilting that as well.