In speaking with many other hand quilters, we all feel that too much emphasis is being put on the longarm quilting. What ever happened to all the beautiful handwork that went with quilting. Many pieces that we see are pieced beautiful but all of that "quilting" is taking away from the real work that has been done.
I personally feel that some of the longarm quilting is beautiful but is overpowering the quilt pieceing and work.
Longarm users in this area who bought their machines with the idea of paying for it by doing work for others are not making out very well. Thank goodness some are going back to hand work or just plain can't afford to pay to have their quilts done by someone else with the rotten economy.