I love hand quilting...and I use a product called "Thimble-it"...they are small oval stick-ons and I layer two, one on top of the other... I can feel the needle and I occasionally feel a little prick...and I build up a small callous when I'm working on a large quilt... but it seems to slow down the callous formation a little bit. I don't mind the callous too much. It goes away soon enough. Well...happy quilting everyone!!