There are plenty of modern quilters doing this, have a look around Instagram. #bigstitchquilting would be a good place to start. It looks lovely. They do the machine quilting first, I believe. (I don't know how to machine sew, otherwise I'd have tried this.)

It generally takes me a few weeks to hand quilt a sofa quilt (around 5' × 6'), but I'm severely disabled and can only quilt for an hour or two a day. I typically space my quilting lines 1.5" apart, but it can get a bit closer, depending on the patterns I'm quilting. I suspect it's a lot quicker than many machine quilters realise. Make sure you pick a batting known to be good for hand quilting, though.

I've entered quilts in our County Fair with hand quilting, machine quilting and applique all combined and received Grand Champion on them so I say - go for it if it is the look you want.

I used to be a strictly hand quilter but it takes so long that I've learned that I need to finish my quilts in my lifetime! :)
No problems combining machine and hand work and I like it too. Adds to a quilt.

Just wondering, nanscan, what your objective is? What are you hoping to achieve that can not be done with either machine or hand quilting alone?

And if, in fact, the only or best way to get there is by combining the two, then know that the Quilt Police have been defunded. You do you!

Can’t wait to see what you make :-)

I have combined machine quilting with tying! I had a quilt made of big squares, but I did not know how to free motion quilting on my sit-down machine. So, I did straight line quilting on the sashing stitch i the ditch and then I used some subtle tack tying to stabilize the center of blocks. I had that quilt on my bed for a long time. It finally faded and the binding plain and simple wore out. One of my friends, will also stabilize the quilt with straight line quilting and then use big stitch quilting to add interest and even just hand embroidery in some spots. Yep, do what you want!

Why not? The Quilt Police can go cram their police-y opinions in their cramhole. 🤣