Rolling a quilt is the hardest way to do it, although it was standard advice 20 years ago. Bicycle clips and all that.
Today's advice is to make a puddle under the needle big enough for your hands and just spread out the quilt in a bigger puddle. It is still a job on a domestic machine
I'm not interested in a long arm, just watching someone else use one makes my back hurt
so my choice was a Janome Horizon. 11" harp space. Then you have a machine for all your uses instead of a giant space taker. Unless you want to get into quilting for others. Anyway, that is my three cents.