I have something of a garment background so bias doesn't "scare" me, just makes me cautious when teaching others. I have seen some amazing stretches in my time. For example - one woman made a RtW quit and "forced" the four strip pieced panels together without the centre piece - and that wasn't even on the bias!!
I usually use a walking foot for all sewing anyway, and have worn out three. But JK doesn't own one, although she did lightly starch her fabric before sutting all the strips. She sews on a very old machien (can't remember the brand) and does curves, straight seams and quilting all with the same small simple foot with no problems and great precision. She was still a learner at the time she made this quilt, but since she didn't know any different she wasn't afraid of bias either. I simply cautioned her about it and she went ahead with a little more care than with straight piecing. No real problems, although making the quilt bigger did mean the finished top skewed a little and had to be trimmed a bit.
Having had a bad experience with one of the earliest fusibles I don't use them myself. I should get some of one of the new "good" brands and give them a try I suppose. I hated basting glue spray, but have some for those who want to try it. I prefer the old method of basting the layers by hand as it makes me feel more comfortable and absolutely nothing gets out if control when you use a tailor's baste. But as we are lucky enough to have a long arm quilter here in our midst, she does all my quilting these days (mostly just stipple quilting which she is very good at) and she did a very good job on JK's tubular quilt - after she got over the impulse to stretch it too tight.