I'm sure you will lots of responses on tools, which are all good ideas. But one of my favorite quilting things is a 'single hole needle plate' for your machine. It keeps those pointy corners and little edges from getting sucked down into the machine. And you know, when you are piecing small pieces, none of it can afford to be sucked into the feed dogs. It will probably only cost you about $30 or so, but I'd give up a whole lot of other tools before I gave up the single needle plate.