I am no help to tell you what to do but I just did my first machine stitching, actually it was just stitching 2 rows around the border. I had hand quilted the quilt part. This is a king size so I thought I would do a fancy stitch around the border. Great idea but I sure learned a lot about drag. I had the machine sitting on top of my table, didn't work so well so next thing I lowered the machine in the cabinet and made a solid area around the machine. This did help, then I grabed my gloves, more help them I kept my quilt very loose so it would feed through. This was a great learning experience for me. Like you I had made a sample block and it looked perfect but the quilt its self was much different. Good luck and welcome to the board. It will be your best friend.