Joanie,
Have you ever seen Suzanne Marshall's quilts or read her books? She also quilts without a hoop. She never took a quilting class, but taught herself how to quilt and applique. Her applique method is a little different and her quilts are incredibly detailed and gorgeous. She includes a lot of animals of all kinds in her quilts, including insects.
I ran across her first book, Take-Away Applique, at the library and was fascinated by it. I literally couldn't put it down. It's not a typical quilting book by any means. Suzanne begins the book with her first quilt, then continues from there, detailing her development as a quilter, where she got the ideas for her quilts, and she even includes the judges' comments on all her quilts, good and bad. It's just a really neat book. It was published in 1998 and isn't in print now, but I keep checking the used book sites hoping to find a copy.
Suzanne also published a more recent book, "Adventure & Applique." None of the libraries in my library's consortium have it, but I've got it on my list on Amazon in hopes of buying it someday.
Here's Suzanne's web site if you're interested:
http://www.suzannequilts.com/index.html
Sorry to go on and on, but when you mentioned quilting by hand without a hoop it reminded me of Suzanne's book.
Oh, and I agree with you and Amma about how awesome this board is. All the members here are so helpful and sharing. It's great! :D