I am a chicken too. I hate the thought of ruining a project I spent hours/days working on with a bad quilting job. I tried free motion quilting but wasn't very good at it. I've done a couple of QAYG projects using the easy method described at:
https://www.stitchedincolor.com/blog//2016/08/how-to-assemble-finish-quilt-as-you-go.html
I used cotton batting and the walking foot on my Singer Model 201 to quilt the blocks before joining them. After the blocks were joined, I stitched in the ditch to attach the back. I was very pleased with the results.
I found two books extremely helpful for walking foot instructions: "Walk" by Jacquie Gering and "Foolproof Walking-Foot Quilting Designs" by Mary Mashuta. Both books contain lots of great ideas for walking foot quilting. Katie Pedersen spoke at our guild meeting yesterday all of the quilts she displayed used straight line walking foot quilting. They were gorgeous.
There are lots of tutorials on QAYG and walking foot quilting available online, including a couple by Leah Day at:
https://leahday.com/blogs/machinequilting/how-to-connect-supersized-quilt-blocks-quilt-as-you-go-tutorial