Speaking of sending your quilt out to get quilted by a long-arm quilter, can anyone tell me what they pay for this? Is it expensive? Sounds like a nice idea, if the price is right and it sure would save time.
Thanks, Sarah in No. Calif.

There are sewing machines out there (I have a Janome 6600P) that you can do quilting on that looks just like hand quilting. You use monofilament in the needle and colored thread in the bobbin, tighten the needle tension and voila, the bobbin thread comes to the top of the quilt to make the evenly spaced stitches. Looks beautiful!
Sarah in No. California

I do both. I don't have a lot of time, so I'm mainly doing machine, but eventually I want to do hand quilting

I am a hand quilter. I love the calmness of sitting at a quilting frame and sewing. When I am in a hurry and it is a simple project, I will machine quilt - but with a walking foot. I am not quite ready for free-motion quilting.

I have been hand quilting for over 25 years and love the process and the look.I do machine piece. It is really very personal. I have machine quilted, but just not my cup of tea. But I also would never give a hand quilted piece to someone that would not appreciate it or understand the love that goes into it. I hand quilted for my little nephews and they love their quilts, I don't even care if they get ruined, because by the time they do, they will have loved them to death. Although there mom tries to put them up for them after a time.

I taught my friend to quilt last year and she went directly to machine quilting and has finished 8 quilts to my two, but that is ok, she likes machine quilting and does not like hand work. It took me forever to convince he to sew the binding by hand, but after trying to sew the binding on completely by machine and not liking the look, she has agreed the binding looks so much better when the final stitching is done on the back by hand.

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I have done both but I hand quilt more. The fancy machine quilting leaves me in awe but I doubt I could ever do that. It does take a long time to have to quilt something and you have to enjoy it to put in the time.

I do both hand and machine quilting. I like to relax of an evening in front of the telly with hubby and do some hand stitching.
I also like to machine quilt to get projects finished more quickly. I quilt them myself on my Janome machine - not a long arm - and it is too expensive here to send them out to a long armer.
I usually have both hand and machine projects going at the same time. It depends on the project which method I use for piecing and quilting, but I always hand sew my binding at the back of the quilt.
I also like to hand embellish with beads, buttons and textured threads.

I usually hand quilt. However, there are some cases when it is necessary to use the machine. The current Quilts for Kids project mentioned in another thread, for instance, requires the quilts be machine quilted. Those will be washed daily, I understand, and need to stand up to a lot of wear and tear. Having said that, I admit I will be honing my machine quilting skills as quilt them.

My reasoning for hand quilting - it relaxes me. :D

It can get very expensive to send a quilt out to a long-armer. Sometimes you can get a great deal, but the fancier the stitching, the more expensive it gets. I've found that a lap quilt tends to run between $60-$150 and a queen size quilt will cost $120-$200+. With those prices, I find it better to just do the quilting myself. I'd rather spend that kind of money on fabric or taking a class or two. Now, if I had a lot of extra money I would send them out to be done. I know several ladies who do absolutely amazing work, but it is simply not in my budget and so I do them myself.