well said

I am a rebel. <G> I don't use either a walking foot or a darning foot for quilting. Most of the machine quilting I do I use an open toe applique foot.
The key is to reduce the pressure foot pressure. On older machines there is a "screw with a knob on it" on the top of the machine..... that regulates the pressure of the pressure foot. To see what I mean, put the foot down and lift up on the toes gently. For most sewing you want some lift but not much. If you put two layers of fabric under the foot you shouldn't be able to easily pull it out. If the pressure is tight you really can't lift the foot, as you loosen the pressure it gets easier to lift it. So if you loosen the pressure to where there isn't a lot of "drag" on the foot/ fabric sandwich you will be less likely to have problems. You can loosen the foot quite a bit, sometimes enough that the feed dogs don't actually engage the fabric. <G> But I believe most Featherweights have a plate that screws on to the bed of the machine to cover the feed dogs in order to do free motion work.
Remember that when the Featherweights were state of the art our foremothers were doing a lot of darning, and machines made that a lot easier. <G>

Have fun,
Pati, in Phx

Mlaceruby summed it up very well.

I think a Low Shank Free motion Darning foot would fit a Featherweight or SID with the reg foot or I know some folks do use the zipper foot. Darning Foot can be found in catalogs and online.

I don't think anyone mentioned to use a cotton batting for machine quilting. The cotton batt "sticks" to both the top and backing and helps to eliminate puckers on the back.

Loosening the pressure on the presser fot is a must for FMQ,dropping the feed dogs and wearing gloves with little rubber nubs on them and using a darning foot. I don't do SID, can't stay in the ditch, I run a line of straight stitches about 1/4" - 3/8" from the ditch, I run the walking foot along the ditch and that makes for a straighter line. I usually always do FMQ and use high loft polyester batting, but, then I have only machine quilted 40 quilts and only a couple of them were baby quilts all the others were mainly double - queen size.
This topic has been talked about lots of times before and all has been said and resaid.

WOW_ You had a lot of firsts in this project. Glad you handle all of them so well !

Who needs a book, all the information we need is here!!
Everyone is so helpful... love you all

Thanks for sharing all the valuable info.

Really appreciate everyone taking the time to revisit a topic that I had specific questions on!