snowyquilter

What exactly does a walking foot do different from a regular foot. I have never quilted a quilt before, and am now starting on a table runner (I thought small was good to start with.) I am going to do just simple straight lines on it when I quilt it. I know I should use a walking foot but never found anything that really explained what it does and why it is good to use.

I did make a crib bumper for my son's crib. Since I really don't know how to sew I pretty much just go with the make it up method for most projects and see what will happen. Any, so what I did was make each panel for the four sides separately. I layered the fabric like this when I sewed it together: batting, batting, fabric for back, fabric for front. (I had two layers of batting since it was kind of thin and I wanted a little bulk to the bumper to help it stand up in the crib since there was not a lot of places to add ties to hold it in place.) I then sewed three sides together and then turned in inside out (or outside in I guess) and the sewed the last seem up. Anyway, when sewing the long sides of the bumper (the top and bottom) the top layer of fabric kept stretching and not feeding very well so by the time I got to the corner, the top layer of fabric was about 1 1/2 inches longer than the batting (I checked and all was the same size when I started.) Would the walking foot have helped with this since it was so thick even though I wasn't actually quilting, or am I completely confused on what a walking foot does?


Thanks in advance.