I ordered a walking foot so I can put the binding on my first quilt (yay!). So my new walking foot came today, accompanied by a weird metal doohickey and no explanation. What is this thing? What do I do with it?

that is a quilting guide. it goes in a hole on the foot and is an adjustable width. that way, your crosshatch lines are equidistant [unless it is me sewing, that is :lol: :lol: ]

It's a guide so your stitch lines are equally spaced.

the long post goes into the hole on the body of the foot or on the body of the needle arm...some machines do it one place, some the other. the funny looking little hook piece rides on the top of your quilt to gauge how far apart the rows of quilting would be. (the most common machine quilting for many years was the simple crosshatch). the round bar will be parallel to the machine bed and the hook will point up...have fun, i have a version of this in my treadle accessories...

Boy, I never would've guessed that at all. I thought it was a tool for scratching that unreachable place between my shoulder blades.

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Be careful about attaching and removing the guide. I broke the side of my walking foot removing mine. Oh just checked your photo--mine snapped into the back of the walking foot. Yours looks like it threads thru the hole--much better design.

Well, guess you could use it for that too...

I still couldn't picture how this worked, so I looked up "quilting guide" on YouTube and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWnTXRZrfFU

Thanks, everyone! This group is such a great resource! I so appreciate your kindness in answering my newbie questions.

I don't care for the guide. Could find a way so it didn't move! No way to screw it at a certain spot so if it moved I was SOL. Used bl tape instead.