Thanks for the welcomes!
Welcome from Beautiful Arizona. I used to live in Austin ( stationed at Bergstrom AFB). Love the area.
I know just what you mean by the 1/4 inch seams, but my 1/4 inch foot that came with my machine does the trick. There are lots of ways to maintain the 1/4 inch seam allowance, so experiment to see what works best for you. Looking forward to seeing your work soon.
I use a 1/4 inch quilting foot too, but I found out on my latest quilt that I needed to be watching the line on my stitch plate (which is tiny!) and not the edge of that foot. None of my blocks came out the right size and I have to square them down to 12 instead of 12.5 inches.
I guess it is mathematically easier to design blocks and cut fabric with increments of 1/4, but it seems to me like the sewing machine wasn't designed to make 1/4 inch seam allowances easy to do. Even though my machine is called a "patchwork edition" I think it is meant for garment sewing where a seam allowance starts out larger and is trimmed afterwards.