My 2 cents worth: it's quite lovely. I have really bad hands, so hand quilting would never be an option for me. (not enough drugs in the world, ha!) So I machine quilt if the piece is small enough, but the larger ones I send to the LA. Quilting is art, and quilters are artists. Some artists use brushes, some use fingers. Some quilters hand-quilt, some quilters machine quilt. All use their love. And that's what matters.