Maggie: Many of us quilt on our home machines. I'm a comparative new comer to free motion quilting so I have a lot to learn but enjoying the process. In terms of stitch in the ditch or any other method of straight stitching for quilting it will help a great deal if you have a walking foot. In case your not familiar, this is a foot that feeds the quilt layers through the machine at an even rate so that you don't have slippage of the various layers. If you don't already have one, you can order one for most machines.