Sounds like a good idea to me. When I'm not playing at working, I'm working at playing with sewing machines, mostly vintage; mostly heavy, but some light weight ones. I've only made a few small quilts.

I suggest starting off with a simple, small quilt that will use some elements and techniques that are tried, true and which you will encounter over and over. There are various forums on quilting and sewing machines (like here). If you're not yet familiar with rotary cutting techniques, there are many web pages and videos that will explain the basics so that you can see if you'd like to use this technique for cutting your fabric pieces.

You can start off with a simple small cutting mat and rotary cutter. If you make a simple two-color quilt, you can have an elegant little quilt without a lot of investment. Sometimes there is free or near - free fabric (cotton is best, IMO) or tools on FreeCycle or Craigslist.

Sewing Machine: it looks like you'd want a light weight one. There are a lot from which to choose, and some are great, some are junky. More on that later ;)

First, give some thought as to what beside quilting, you might want to do with a sewing machine. I do a LOT of clothes patching. Oh, and as you probably know, there is "piecing" (cutting the patches and sewing them in certain sequences for patterns) and there is "quilting" -- sandwiching the top, batting, and bottom of a quilt with stitches -- tied, free-form/free motion meandering, grid-like stitches, and outline stitching, for example. Most of this is done with simple straight stitching.

If you think you want to mostly (or only) do simple, small quilts and focus on the piecing aspect (it's possible to send your finished pieced quilt top out for the quilting part -- a lot of folks do this), there are some good used or new sewing machines out there. (BTW, have you ever used a sewing machine before? If so, what type?)

So, think about these questions:

* What's your budget for a sewing machine? Think also about the few things you'll need to go with it, mostly modestly priced, like sewing machine oil, cleaning brush, bobbins, any special feet, and so on.

* Are you or are you not, a "handy" person, or mechanically inclined? Do you learn well on your own after scouting around for information? Some people want to just sew or design and not get 'near' the mechanical and logistical aspects of a sewing machine. Others like to tinker a bit and try to figure things out. There is no "right" or "wrong" here, only what suits your goals and personality and interests. If you are of the latter type and don't mind a modest degree of getting out a screwdriver and oil can, you can save yourself money (and time) and have fun while doing so. Many of the newer machines don't need much care, but the cheaper ones can jam up and the other ones can cost more $ and be expensive-ish to repair or have serviced. I've got a few of those. Mostly I stick to the older, all mechanical sewing machines that I can service myself, which sew very nicely, will last a long while and are pretty much trouble free.

I cannot say that I'd recommend buying some of the cheaply made, poorly designed, soon to be landfilled machines that are found at some big chain stores for the tempting price of $99 or even $150. I wouldn't buy any low end "SINGER" (no longer what it used to be) or certain introductory Brother machines. Both Singer and Brother can and do make some nice machines, but not for $99 or even $150.

A lot of quilters like the simple straight stitch Singer Featherweight 122 (older black or white models), but they can fetch a dear price, perhaps around $400. On the other hand, I've bought them (in the past two years) for $50 (with case, manual and controller) and for under $250. But they needed to be cleaned up a bit and lubricated (lots of online help with these).

The Kenmore all metal 158.1004 and similar 1003 is a nice little vintage machine that isn't very heavy and will even do zig zag. You could probably find one of these for $150 or less and it would last a lot longer than a plastic box store machine.

There are other vintage all metal machines that stitch really nicely, but most of those weigh over 25 Lbs. and sometimes 35 to 45 Lbs..

For plastic, nylon gear, very portable machines that are decent:

Kenmores made by Janome (the model number starts with 385.

Janome (like Janome Gem)

But there are small, portable plastic machines that can still serve one well if you look it over carefully, test it and stay mindful of its limitations -- no heavy duty use like horse blanked, blue jean seams, and so on.

Once you go beyond the budget (used, Craigslist, etc) realm, there are all sorts of really nice sewing machines to play with.

I hope this helps.

One more thought: if you want to try quilting, you can get a bit of fabric and make a simple mug rug or potholder. You can piece it with a machine, or try sewing the pieces by hand. I made a simple "turkey red" and muslin nice patch, half square triangle potholder that I put dark blue narrow binding on and it looked so nice, I just kept it hanging on a pantry door.