When sewing or quilting a straight line down a quilt...you will want to alternate the direction of each row. If the first row starts at the top, then start the 2nd row at the bottom.
I now have a longarm machine, but when I did use my home machine, I learned also that if I treated the quilt as if it were a hand quilting job...starting in the middle, stitching around each block section, the end result was much better.