I have always taken my quilts to a LAer. I love piecing them. I did do one small wall hanging with hand quilting and that was enough for me. I can't imagine trying to machine quilt on my sewing machine. My quilts are toooooo big for me to wrestle with. I love being able to talk with my LAer and decide what my quilt is going to look like. She does it all. Panto, meanders, customs. There are about 10 LAers within 1 1/2 hours of me and they are all backlogged so I know that a lot of quilters don't quilt their own quilts.