I bought an expensive Brother machine this past year and it came with two 'regular' sewing feet. Neither gave me a good, clear 1/4" line. I bought another 1/4" foot, but that came with other issues. I still cannot get a good, clear, vision of the 1/4" 'place" to be sewing!

I never found a foot that gave me good results for 1/4". What I do instead is place a physical adhesive guide on the bed of my machine, measuring it myself to give me a scant 1/4". I used to use moleskin (purchase in the foot section of any pharmacy), but recently found these Dritz adhesive guides which I like even better because they are taller:
http://www.amazon.com/Dritz-Quilting...dp/B0085L2Y2I/
As I recall they were about $3 at my local JoAnn Fabrics.

I do *not* recommend the red ruler Dritz sells for marking the 1/4" seam. It measures an *exact* 1/4" which will result in too wide a seam when you iron. I use my own cutting ruler to mark the seam instead. I place the ruler under the presser foot, manually lower the needle until it is just to the right of my 1/4" line on the ruler, lower the presser foot to hold the ruler in place, check the lines going front to back against the bed of the machine to make sure that the entire ruler is straight-on, then butt the adhesive guide up against the right side of the ruler.

A physical barrier works a lot better than a foot, in my opinion. With this barrier I can sew seams very fast and get perfectly even seams for the entire length (and no eyestrain from trying to make sure fabric is lined up).

I have used a regular foot with the feed dogs up and have not had a problem. This is what I do on most of my quilts.

What I have done, without a walking foot, is to do a diamond pattern. I chalk mark two lines, corner to corner, crossing in the center. After safety pinning within the four quadrants created by my lines, I begin in the center and stitch out along one of the diagonals up to a corner. Then I use a guide bar to set the next row, and continue that way filling in that quadrant with diagonal lines spaced as appropriate for the pattern. I repeat with each of the quadrants, always working from middle out. That way I have avoided bunching since everything gets smoothed out from the middle out.

LOL, I hate to say it, but I cannot do a straight line no matter the foot! You don't need a walking foot, just a steady hand!

I bought another walking foot for my "Number Two "- machine ( a basic Brother) from eBay for less than 20 USD shipping included. A generic one, a bit noisy but works OK.

Haven't read all the posts but the first time I tried to straight line quilt without a walking foot was a disaster!!! Fabric scrunched up in front of foot all over the place. I bought a generic one for $25 twenty years ago. I have since bought another generic one and I think it was around $15. I can't even sew on binding without my walking foot. By the way, the prices on the Brother site were way more than you can get a generic foot somewhere else.