I only flat quilt and enjoy it, do not/cannot do patchwork buying tops if I want them , but think that your finished quilt looks really good to my unqualified eye. Many quilts that that I've seen machine quilted have been stitched too closely making them hard and not soft/comforting and quite frankly make me feel sick.
You should be very proud of your work.
A gift like this will be cherished

Your quilt is lovely!

What a beautiful, beautiful quilt !!

I suggest taking it back to the LAQ and
see if she could add/modify the design,
such as adding more fans between the initial
ones.

However I agree with all the other posters,
your kids will only see the love and effort put
into it and cherish it.

Holy smokes, yes!!! I had a queen sized quilt I had made as a wedding gift but went through a divorce and decided not to give it to my ex-husband's niece. (I would have but she wouldn't speak to me, except to demand I finish and give her the quilt. Pbbtt!) Instead I took it to a quilt shop and had them quilt it. It cost me about $200. The fabric is a gorgeous purple wisteria outlined in gold and the complimentary fabric is a gentle green with goldish veins. I wanted something that would show off the gold quilting, explaining that this was meant as a wedding quilt & I wanted the quilting to reflect that. What I got back was horrible, horrible, horrible! The gal had done these insipid daisies all over the quilt like some kind of meandering gone wrong. To make it worse, she did it in yellow and bright orange varigated thread. OMG!!! Now when I ask people if they see any gold and they look at me as if I've lost my mind. If it had been for something else, say a child's quilt, it would be fine, but it was so far from what I wanted that I simply hate the quilt. I let guests use it and many of my family has tried to lift it from me to keep, but I'm so disgusted by how it turned out that I can't gift it to anyone and I certainly don't want it anywhere near my bed!

Thread: I never like Machine quilting because it does not give the detail of the quilt. Another thing the quilt will not last as long as if it was hand quilted.

I have never heard this before. Why would you say this? I ask out of interest and a desire to learn so I hope the question doesn't sound snarky. To me, it would be like saying a hand pieced quilt should last longer than a machine pieced quilt and that doesn't seem to make sense to me. Help out a confused gal, please.

I am so sorry that you too have had to experience this. I have had the same thing happen as well as my sister in Florida. It seems to happen quite a bit and I am not sure why. My heart goes out to you.

It is stunning..just like it is!

Sorry to hear you are not happy with the quilt you had machine quilted. Could it be that you are just compairing hand quilting to machine quilting. I had one quilted five years ago and they did a wonderful job.

I'm interested in hearing the answer to this question. I've never heard that before and I'm wondering too. I understand your feeling about the detail part...but the long lasting...can you explain please?