I use my regular foot for piecing and follow the 1/4" mark on the bed of my machine (which happens to be the right edge of the feed dogs). I use the walking foot for straight line quilting and for putting on the binding. You must use the feed dogs with the walking foot. The feed dogs move the bottom layer and the walking foot moves the top layer at the same rate. The only time I lower the feed dogs is when I'm doing free motion quilting with my darning foot. This allows me to guide the quilt under the needle with no interference from the machine.