I'm leaning towards machine quilting the background and then hand quilting inside the Hexi's. I like the idea of Quilt as you Go. Might work for this one. It sure would make the machine quilting easier and if I do the 30x30 which will be 3 blocks by 3 blocks with a top and bottom border, the size would be nice for the quilting part and there wouldn't be a lot of joining.