HELP - Walking Foot versus Ditching Foot
I am new to quilting and have taught myself through this wonderful website, tutorials on YouTube.com and Missouri Star Quilting and others. Anyway, I just watched a great tutorial on Craftsy.com about quilting big projects on small machines and she does SITD to stabilize the sandwich before she free motions the quilting. Here is my question. Since I don't have a walking foot I started out researching them to buy. I found out there is also a thing called a ditching foot. They are both about the same price on Amazon.com but I was wondering if all of the wonderful experts might have some advice on which is better.
My first quilt was a disaster. Then after many tutorials I tried a Jelly Roll Race quilt and had fantastic success. I did not SITD it but the free motion meander of the quilting makes me feel confident that it will not fall apart in the wash. However, I have another quilt that is blocks and I did the free motion quilting without SITD and since I did a design within the blocks and didn't cross stitching lines I am petrified that it is going to fall apart in the wash and I am thinking I MUST go back and SITD. Rest assured, on the third one I am currently working on, I will use all of the advice obtained in the tutorial that I didn't watch until after the second quilt was finished.
Sorry, for the length but any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. I asked the instructor of the tutorial but all she said was she has a Bernina with a ditching plate for the walking foot. Not a big help since I cannot afford a Bernina.