Doing the happy dance for you. You will LOVE your Avante and you will have so much fun with it!
Regarding the memory quilt. A friend of mine, who is totally into ancestry.com just did one with really old family photos (like19th century pictures)and she just did different size photo blocks and "framed" them (put sashing around each one) in a brown fabric so it looked like wood picture frames. She then set them in solid beige background fabric. It looked fabulous. Simple but all the emphasis was on those photo blocks. She said she was trying to replicate framed photos hanging on a wall and she totally nailed it. She was planning on doing just SITD around the frames and then tying or crows footing the rest of the quilt so as to keep all emphasis on the pictures. I think it will look wonderful when she is done. Simple and sophisticated.