But you can get an adaptor for your shank that will ''clip'' onto the quarter inch foot, and you will really love piecing with it.

I love it when members here say that some "thing" will make you "love" piecing/binding/basting...with said gadget...it's so ENCOURAGING, and makes me want to run out and get said "thing!" I can feel your excitement, and I want to have that, too! I can already envision myself going "ooooo!!! Ahhhhh! How did I ever get along without this!"
Thanks, mermaid!

Walking foot v. Quilting foot: Janie's correct. My sewing machine dealer (I have a Janome 525S) told me I don't need a walking foot. Well, maybe this machine is different, but I got all kinds of puckers on the backing of my quilt when I quilted it on my old Singer until I got a walking foot. What a great invention! It has its own feed dogs so that it moves the top of the quilt along at the exact same speed that your sewing machine's feed dogs move it along from the bottom and voila - no more puckers! The whole quilt sandwich moves along smoothly as a unit this way.

The stick-like foot with the ring at the bottom is indeed a free motion quilting foot, sometimes called a darning foot too. When you do FMQ, you drop your feed dogs and the speed with which you move the quilt around determines the stitch length. That little ring holds the quilt down as the needle rises. After the needle has cleared the quilt, the darning/FMQ foot releases the pressure so you can move the quilt around easily.