Your suggestions are pretty consistent, so I see the way I think I should go. One more question: with the echo quilting around the appliques--should that echo the appliques themselves, or the exact shape of the peacock and flowers (my appliques are a bit bigger, and of course rounder, than the actual florals)? I'm thinking it should be the appliques, otherwise they might look odd with lines that do not parallel them--is what I'm saying clear?
Thanks so much to those who made suggestions. Also thanks to those who said they liked the quilt top--I really love it, too!

I would outline the exact shape of the flowers and peacocks and ignore the lines where the appliques were sewn to the backing fabric. Then echo the shapes two or three times to make them stand out rather than letting the applique patching standout. Your quilt is wonderful!

Your quilt is so beautiful.

How about some echo quilting if you are ready for it?

Beautiful quilt!

When I have a center focus thing like your peacock, I usually quilt around it to make it stand out and all the other surrounding appliques. Then, if I don't want too much quilting around it, I make like a sunburst radiating out from the center. To get this I first mark corner to corner, of course skipping over any of the appliques, making an X across the area. Then mark a + from center top to bottom and center side to side. Then I keep measuring half-way in between those and marking until I get the rays radiating out from the middle as densely as I want the quilting to be. If you want a better explanation, message me and I will email you a picture.

The quilt is beautiful tho I always have a problem with fleece backing stretching when I quilt it so I alway tie when I have a fleece backing you could use the colors of the quilt so it dosn't show that much such as black on black & blue on blue or use the peacock color all over.

I've never had a problem with fleece stretching, but I'll be especially careful about it, now that you mention it. I was planning on using black on black for the quilting--I don't want to do anything that will distract a lot from the peacock. My DGD wants a bright color on the back, so I'll probably use a different color thread on the bottom--not sure, but I usually don't have a problem using 2 different colors when fleece is involved because it has the loft that hides any tension problems--I'll try it out first, of course, and if it's a problem, I'll use black for both and you'll see the quilting on the back.

I fully agree with what Lori L said above about outlining the picture itself, not the applique shape. You want to hide the area where you sewed it down. It is a beautiful quilt. Please show us a picture when it is completely finished.

It's hard to imagine being able to hide the appliqueing, but I will go with yours and Lori L's advice on this. I'm not very experienced with appliques.