Originally Posted by DannyValentine
Yesterday I went into the quilt shop here in Bossier and I was talking to a lady who worked there. She was trying to get me to buy a sewing machine and she said machine sewing is so much better and faster than handquilting and she said once you start machine sewing you'll never go back to hand sewing again. So my question is what works best for you? Me personally, I like hand quilting. I like having my hands busy. I'm like my husband. I'm always fidgeting and need my hands busy.
I'm a hand quilter by preference and thoroughly enjoy doing it and fine it relaxing and theraputic but I am trying to learn to machine quilt because several of my friends in my retirement community have arthritis and can no longer hand quilt or sew anything by hand. As you get older you have to look at things differently and since I love quilting so much have decided that it would be wise for me to learn machine quilting now so that should the time come where I couldn't hand quilt, I could still be a quilter. Those ladies do miss hand quilting but said they would really miss quilting more so they machine quilt and do beautiful and awesome work. Aren't we lucky to live in a time where we have options like that.
I'd say follow your personal preferences but open your mind to other possibilities in the process. I'm also learning different methods of quilt as you go as well, just in case and hopefully I'll be able to continue enjoying quilting for many more years in one form or the other.