The topic of machine vs hand has been discussed on the QB so many times since I have been a member and I am sure before and will be a hot topic of debate always.
Both have their merits and I feel neither is superior to the other. Handwork deserves its own special ranking of respect due to the time, dedication, patience and skill that must be devoted to it. I have never hand pieced a quilt but I have done hand applique and have hand quilted 2 queen size bed quilts, 1 king size bed and quilt and I am currently on my 4th queen. Every single one of these quilts took me several years to complete. I feel that sort of dedication deserves special recognition.
This said I also LA. I took delivery of my LA last year and I have completed 11 quilts in that time and I have my 12th on the rack right now. Beautiful, artistic free hand LAing requires dedication, skill and talent as well. I am not talking meander, pantos and most definitely not computer guided. The computet guided stuff, while very pretty is not in the same ranking as that produced by a person. Yes a human may have digitized the design but a machine did the output and the operator requires no talent, simply a learned skill of placement.
I am talking about the free hand LAing you see put out by people like Rhonda Beyer, Sharon Schambers and Karen McTavish and our very own Green Fairy. I am no where near to producing the works of art these artists produce nor what I have seen at major shows. I do strive to be that good some day and if I keep practicing and pushing myself to do the hardest thing I can I am sure I can achieve that.
Hand piecing in todays time is not done out of necessity but done out of pleasure. And there are still hand piecing artists as well, Jinny Beyer comes to mind. This does not make the technique superior to machine piecing but again, due to the dedication and time involved and the results produced by artists like Jinny, I think it deserves special recognition and admiration.
So neither technique is better than the other. Each is unique and requires a talent in it's own right. The purists who say only handwork is the real way to make a quilt need to try both ways themselves and see if they still think the same. Perhaps the term "hand made" is not the right term, maybe hand crafted would be better.