I have a Juki TL-98Q and I wear garden gloves, the ones that are cloth on the top and the palms are a thick rubber. I can get a good grip of the fabric and when they wear down, they turn back into garden gloves. Works for me.
Leah Day is fabulous, I like to see how she does the machine quilting from her videos. Diane Gaudynski is also fabulous and she has two books that are absolutely wonderful. I "practice" on real quilts, not practice blocks. That way I am always trying to do my very best. I use the quilting foot that came with my machine and it works fine. I would like to get an open foot eventually. The only way to be comfortable with it is to practice practice practice.