I love the look of both machine and hand quilting. I have arthritic fingers so I don't do quilting by hand. I do however know women from my quilt club that do and two of them do it with thicker thread.....DMD Cebelia. They take bigger stitches and their quilts turn out absolutely beautiful. It still takes them a long time but not as long. The choice is really for the person who pieced the quilt together. And another thing to consider....if the quilt will be laundered frequently, it definitely should be machine quilted. So I think the choice would be yours to make.