It depends on your machine and walking foot. Not all walking feet can accommodate decorative stitches.

If your walking foot has a wide opening, you should be able to do some decorative stitches with it. If it only has a small round hole, it can not.

I tried once, didn’t like how the back turned out and ripped it out.

I read somewhere you shouldn’t use reverse stitches with a walking foot. Is that correct?

Again, I think it depends on your machine and its walking foot. A lot of walking feet do not like reverse stitches which means that, even if the foot has the wider opening, it will work only with decorative stitches that do not involve reverse stitches. It is more likely that a walking foot for a newer, expensive machine will allow reverse stitches.

I would have to test out my old Bernina 1230 to be sure my memory is serving me correctly, but I know I have always avoided doing back stitching (and decorative stitches that include reverse stitches) with it. I do think I have done some decorative stitches with it, but again I'd have to go try it to be sure. Probably the best thing is to, aside from consulting the manual for a specific machine and specific walking foot, is to cautiously test it out. If the thread gets tangled or jammed, you know your walking foot was not meant to be used for reverse stitches. Caution is a key word here, as no one wants to create a thread jam that might throw a machine out of time.

I might cautiously try this then! My machine is a Brother - new in Dec and is the higher end of mid-range price. The walking foot has a wide opening so it seems promising.

People use the heart design and some others too I'm sure for tacking.

Mine is a Janome 3160QDC. I know there was a night and day difference between stitches with and without back stitches.

I have used them in a few quilts. I would steer away from patterns that have a satin stitch or other very closely spaced stitches because they might act like the perforations on a stamp and weaken your quilt. If it's something that isn't going to get washed, that might not matter.

I don't know about Necchi, but the instructions with every walking foot I've seen say not to use them with any stitch that backs up or is wider than a regular zigzag, which may be most decorative stitches. Test the stitch you want to use by using the recommended foot first (on a layered swatch) and watch to see if the fabric goes forward and back and/or side to side. It won't be able to do this properly with the walking foot. If you first use other types of quilting close to the area where you want to do the decorative stitch, maybe it will work okay without the walking foot. For example, you could quilt everything except a narrow border, and then add a line of decorative stitches in it. Hope you'll show us the finished quilt!