I only hand sewed (pieced and quilted) for years, now I machine as well. It's not 'better' or worse for that matter but it is faster. Hand sewing in the evening watching TV - quilting, EPP or embroidery of crazy blocks I find very relaxing. Here in France, there is a prejudice against machine work, like it's cheating in some way. If you go to quilt shows, you see ppl turn away in disgust from quilts annotated as machine pieced or quilted. But using a machine is an art in itself I think, especially FMQ which is bloomin difficult! I say both ways have equal value and ya boo sucks to those who say mean things about one or the other!

I like to machine piece and prefer to hand quilt in a frame. I have started machine quilting the Downy quilts but it's very basic. Anything larger than twin is awkward for me. I'm totally in awe tho of work I've seen done by LA quilters. It's a real art form.

I love to hand quilt in a small lap hoop, but it is very time consuming so for charity quilts (like quilts for kids) or table toppers, I straight line machine quilt.

For a bed quilt, I sometimes do both hand and machine. My first quilt was an Irish chain (when I discovered how annoying it is to hand quilt across all those seams)I did some on machine and some hand quilting.

I want to do free motion machine-am taking a class soon

Its what ever makes you happy :)

I do both. Depends on what quilt I'm doing.

If I want ANYTHING to get DONE, I have to do it by machine. I think it is personal preference. Not something to compete.

I do have a couple of quilts and a wall hanging I hand quilted. Pain made me stop hand quilting, and just gave my large floor hoop away. I have done queen and one king on my DM machine, now I have the HQ16 and love it. I do love the look of hand quilting and wish I could still do some.

Hi jlj, You can cover your feed dogs by taping a business card over them. Or you can machine quilt with stitch in the ditch or echo or gentle curves. Hope this helps if you do want to machine quilt.

I do alot of hand work because i work in the 'private-duty' home health care and have lots of time to be busy with not much to do, so I sew...when i'm home i use my machine ALOT but in the evenings if i want to sit with dh and watch tv the hand work comes back out...i really enjoy both, most of my hand work was applique and embroidery but recently started hand piecing and am lovin' it! the precision is great, much easier to achieve than with the machine and i am really enjoying the process...i probably hand work 65-70% machine sew the other 30-35%

Machine quilting is definitely faster but that doesn't always mean better. I just don't enjoy machine quilting. I do it for wallhangings and sometimes baby quilts but it just isn't my thing. I love to hand quilt. It's all personal preference.
Do what you enjoy the most. That's what quilting is all about.