Originally Posted by Iceblossom

Another poster seconding and thirding the previous recommendations. Of course you can back a quilt with flannel. Definitely pre-wash the flannel preferably with hot water and a hot dry.

All of my first quilting by machine projects were done on a vintage machine. No walking foot and a small throat space. It it doable with your machine, especially with a crib sized project. With straight grid or mild curves, I left the feed dogs engaged and did not do any free motion or using the darning plate or whatever. Some people get better results with rolling up the project tightly and I started that way, but as time and my confidence level went up, I started being looser with the project and just stuffing it in with the smaller portion inside the throat. With your model of machine having the extra room on the outside will help support the project. As with everything, practice helps. First make sure you have your tension and all that right using scraps before working on the actual project. And/or use some old sheets or whatever from your closet or the thrift store and get used to pushing larger pieces.

You haven't mentioned the batting -- when I started back in the dark ages it was basting with thread or we used the big diaper sized safety pins. Now we have specialty pins if you go that direction. A lot of the posters on these boards use the Elmer's Glue method for basting. I prefer the spray baste but that adds expense and some getting used to the spray baste. I think most people use way too much at first so sometimes you have to let the quilt sandwich dry a bit before you can quilt it or even give it away! We have a number of threads on basting concepts here.