ElinLewis76

Hi everyone! First time posting, long time lurking.
I'm working on my first quilt. I've tried to include a photo. It is a collage quilt for a wall hanging.... (at the same time I'm working on a traditional machine pc'd quilt to get the hang of things). I'm using info from a couple Susan Carlson books to get me pointed in the right direction. Her method uses water soluble glue to compose and tack on the pcs, then netting over the top to smooth things for quilting. I'm partially done with affixing pcs using water soluble glue. I'd like to somehow avoid netting over the top (I feel like it dulls the colors). I'm considering getting a free motion spoon/glide foot for my machine and/or using a water soluble topper (used traditionally in embroidery) as suggested by my sewing shop, to allow me to sew over many pcs of uneven fabric (all 100% cotton quilting fabric).
Has anyone had experience with this? Does anyone have other suggestions? Should I sew the small pcs of the tail etc onto the top fabric *before quilting (applique?), or just sew everything together when I have my quilt sandwich? Any thoughts on type of thread and needles? Which machine should I use? Do I want a free motion ring?

My machines are Pfaff Expression 710 (love this machine), Pfaff 360 (older), Viking Klass20 (older), and Husqvarna Mega Quilter (smaller one, with free motion table). Feel free to correct my use of vocabulary above :-) I'm still learning.