Maybe that is what it all boils down to. Some people like gadgets and some people don't. Everyone has their own level of "gadget love". I have a friend who won't use a cake mix, but loves her Kitchen Aid mixer. To her it's "cheating" to make a cake from a mix, but not to use a nice mixer.

That makes me happy that the machine will just do it on its own, happily buzzing away. Ehh, let her enjoy her toy. Cheaper than sending to a longarm.

Maybe it is all about the Kitchen Aid, I love mine. But still use brownie mix. For me it is what taste the best. Sorry for getting off topic.

"Cheating" gives a negative connotation. Quicker, easier, perhaps but not cheating. To imply cheating that means rules are being broken. There are no rules, no police. Now if this person was trying to pass off a computerized machines work as hand done or entered in a show under hand quilted, that would be a different story. People who use the word cheating are obviously in the mind set that quilting must be hand done. I have to say, if our great grandmother had machines or the machines we do today, I think 99% of them would have used them!

I know, but hey it gets completed. for me that's a good thing. i have tons of "tops".
i used to say i'd never have one quilted for me. been there, done that. not by a computerized machine yet, but.....

Oh, my! I didn't mean to open a can of worms. HMM wonder where that phrase comes from

Those of us who use knitting machines also get the "cheating" label. Believe me, we may get it done faster, but it's still work to use the machines. We have to move the carriage each row, do the shaping manually and in some cases, do the patterning manually. It's still knitted by you!

I have no problem with any method that gets the result desired. I have a problem with misrepresentation...as long as there is full disclosure and credit given, I'm okay.
Some use terms loosely...handmade and homemade, for example, don't mean the same to me...so, I'd like to hear handguided or computerized. There's no "cheating" involved when there's full accurate disclosure.

I always hand quilt, but not because I consider machine quilting "cheating"--it's because I really love traditional quilts and patterns and--no offense, y'all--I just don't like the overall auto-quilted look of most machine quilting. I certainly appreciate ALL the work--designing, planning, piecing, and quilting (by whatever method)--that goes into every quilt, and I *do* machine-piece often on my old Kenmore. It's just the look of the stitches: I prefer the look of hand quilting.

Having said that, I did just buy and read a copy of Harriet Hargrave's _Heirloom Machine Quilting_ because hey, I'll never live long enough to create all the quilts in my head if I don't find a way to speed up the process somehow!

imho, If you can set a program and walk away or you send it out to be quilted - then you pieced it but you didn't quilt it and the label should reflect that. You shouldn't claim it as your work if you didn't do it.