congrats on your new machine! I would recommend so inexpensive cotton like you would use on quilts instead of satin. As far as thread goes I love Superior's SoFine--its very lint free and fine enough that it doesn't look messy when you backtrack over previous stitching. I buy batting on a roll--much cheaper that way. On tht cheap cotton,go ahead and mark quilt block "patterns" to practice with--or better yet, if you can find some "cheater cloth" that has blocks printed on them (think Marshall's DryGoods has them) it would make good practice.