Here in Germany we have quite a lot of hand piecers through all ages and they all do wonderful things. Many use the old English Paper Piecing method with basting the fabric around a paper template (Hexagon and others) and they whip stitch them together.
I also handpiece the lenght of fabric for my wholecloths. It's so relaxing and I like the seam sewn by hand much more than the machine sewn one.