I don't need a walking foot on my 301. I do have the stitch in the ditch foot and love it for that. I tried stitch in the ditch with the FMQ foot, but I wasn't overally accurate, so I quit. I will do a short run if I need to travel from one block to another, but for a lot of SITD, I use the special foot.

I quilt my blocks, do a stitch in the ditch on the inner side of my stopper strip (my quilts have a narrow, strong colored border to contain the color, then the border). After that I quilt the border in a different pattern. If you are going to use the straight line stitching on the blocks, then the border might want some curves and just the border wouln't be too much to start with.

SITD isn't easy, but for me it's easier than trying to sew 1/4" from the seam. I just did that on a Quilt of Valor and I hated it.

I can backstitch with the walking foot on my Elna, but I wouldn't on a quilt. Just stay in one spot for four stitches.

I can back stitch with my walking foot with no problem. I enjoy doing SITD. I use a foot that centers the ditch in the middle of the foot where I can see it. I would not do STID freehand. I have a little bar that attaches above the pressure foot that I can adjust to make even spaced lines also. I just set it and do row after row diagonally.