Hand quilting - hmmm? IMHO, it will never die out. The art of quilting seemed to die out in the last century, but look how strong the movement is to keep the art alive! Granted, more people are doing the quilting by machine, but many still treasure the process of doing it by hand. When a quilt is going to be used a great deal (baby blankets, etc.) the machine quilting makes sense. But the treasures of the next century, I think we will find, will be the hand-quilted quilts.