The biggest change during my quilting 'life' has been the demise of templates, as was mentioned. When I first was interested in quilting, probably in the late 80s, everything was marked on the fabric and then cut out with scissors. You were urged to make templates out of plastic, save lids etc. to use to make templates! Pieces were machine sewn but then mostly hand quilted. I made one big quilt that way and the whole process was so cumbersome that I really gave up on making any more. Then, ten years or so later, there were mats and rulers and machine quilting... and the whole process became FUN!