My very first quilt was a QS, machine pieced and hand quilted, I was amazed at how fast it came together as I kept at it! Not the most perfect quilt in the world but I learned heaps, got better at hand quilting along the way and realised that with just my humble 'lap hoop' I could do it! I have never looked back and much prefer to make larger quilts than smaller ones. I love to hand quilt and found this out only because I did not know how to machine quilt at the time, my DH bought me a hoop and I had not ever tried it out, and bingo, once I did that was it, HOOKED!
Gal