I will always be a handquilter. I do machine quilt the many Linus quilts I make in order to produce a generous amount. They also will have to bear a lot of laundering from people, generaly not familiar with handwork. To me handquilting is portable, and relaxing and can be very social. I have a number of friends who have long arms. Several of them do it as a business and are quickly burning out. I am not physically able to stand at such a machine for the time it takes to complete a quilt. It isn't long before longarming becomes like a factory job. Most of my friends who do it say the worst part is loading and unloading the machine. Since my favorite part of quilting is the actually quilting I am not interested in ever owning or even operating a longarm machine.