And on the flip side - I have used my embroidery machine to piece quilt blocks in the hoop. I recently had to make 40 signature blocks for a friend's wedding. I designed the block using embroidery software and was able to have my embroidery machine stitch out 4 blocks at a time. It worked out surprisingly well and all blocks were perfect. To be perfectly honest though, if my hoop wasn't big enough to hold 4 blocks at a time it would not have been worth the extra effort of hooping, stabilizting, etc.