I'm with her I bought all of the stuff needed for the Hand Quilting class, tore my fingers up, can't work comfortably with thimble, we were working from the 14" hoop but I never quite figured it out. I just think I'm better off with machine quilting. I feel quilty because I normally don't back down to a challenge.
If your working with small pieces like for a scrappy pattern as your working on the pieces you don't have a piece big enough to go in the hoop. I almost feel defeated with it maybe in the new yr I'll try and do some work on it again. My problem is writing down instructions doesn't help me much I need someone to show me the steps and then I'm ok.