No, Virginia, there is no such thing as the Quilt Police!!
This is your quilt. Whether you machine quilt, hand quilt, both, tie it, tack it, or send it out is your gig. If you still insist on another quilter's anointing of your decision, I approve of whatever you choose to do and I'm sure it will come out wonderful.

Anyone who hand quilts even a small square has my admiration.
It will look beautiful however you do it.
Theresa

Yes, I have done both on a quilt. Sometimes, it just calls for a bit of both, as you have discovered. I did enter it into a non juried show and they couldn't decide which category to put it in so they put it in Miscellaneous. It was a non juried show so it didn't really matter.

Yours will be beautiful with your own special touch!
Gwen

A woman in my SBS group did just that. She handquilted the blocks but machine quilted in the larger open areas of borders. She won Viewer's Choice at our Guild show in Oct.
I always say "Your quilt, your choice".

I am plugging away at my blocks and now have 30 done. I have joined a group at a quilt shop and they are assigned 10 blocks to complete each month. Since I am so far behind I have given myself the goal to complete 15 a month. I should have the remaining 110 (are there that many more???) in about 6-7 months.

Jayne~Wow! Amazing that you are hand quilting SBQ ~ you will really bond with it now. I admire your dedication to SBQ even more!! I can't answer your question - I do not hand quilt, but I do have a stitch on my sewing machine that is an antique quilt stitch that resembles hand stitching. You use a combination of monofilament thread & regular thread. I think mono in the top thread-I always have to look it up-and you adjust the tension. The stitch goes forward and backward, the mono providing the unseen space. It looks like hand quilting and would blend completely with the real hand quilting.
The stitch reminds me of the old stretch stitch we sewed with polyester double knits so the seams didn't pop, but it is different. Look and see if your machine has this stitch. That would allow you to SID or wherever you wanted more strength than hand stitching offers.
If you want more info on this stitch, let me know--I am taking all this from my memory. I have used the stitch on an entire sampler quilt, a UFO because it is QAYG- and I hate that method, but I like the quilt, and I like the stitch.
It was my first, a class taken at the dealer to get to know my machine. I never would have known about this cool stitch without that year long class.
If you want more help identifying the stitch, let me know.
You amaze me!

Thank you for the thoughts and Marsha I think I know the stitch you are refering to. I have never seriously used it but did play around with it when I first heard about it. I sounds like it might be useful here.
I just started the quilting a couple of weeks ago. There are 140 blocks and if I do 1 a day I should be able to finish by the end of spring. I am up to 20 so far. They are difficult to hand quilt because the pc. are so small and difficult to put the needle thru in some areas but I felt it deserved the special touch. I just felt the it needed more definition in the areas that I mentioned but to labor intensive to hand quilt.

IMO....this is your quilt, you do it however you want to.
This piece of advice was the best I ever received when I first started quilting. Took a class, joined two guilds, and was generally made to feel that everything had to be done a specific way with a specific product. Took another class from a wonderful teacher, quilter, and star in our state who told us......It is your quilt, do it your way. I now do what I want and have been very happy. So have the recipients of my quilts.
So...do it your way, be happy with it.
Again...this is just my humble opinion.
Murphy

Yep, all the time! On my bluework, redwork, and pinkwork baby quilts, I hand quilted the embroidered blocks and machine quilted on the diagonal throughout the rest of the quilt. Then I can say that the quilt is "hand embroidered, hand and machine quilted." ;o)

Teresa

Sorry to disagree, but that machine stitch that looks like hand quilting is nothing but evil and should be avoided at all costs! I've got that stitch on my Viking, thinking "oh, how wonderful that will be/look!" NOT! Unless you can stitch absolutely perfectly, you will curse the world and pull your hair out if you try to take out any of your stitching. And....it is slow to boot!

(end of rant)

Teresa

I have a quilt that's been dated as late 1800's; some of it is machine quilted and some hand quilted. Do it however it feels right to you and know that quilters have been doing that a long, long time!

Kate

I started out hand quilting and I never would have combined them. It just look so obviously machine stitched to me and I didn't like it at all. In the 70's MQing was not considered quilting.

I now see that MQing is an acquired skill, just like hand quilting. IMO is harder than hand quilting, but so much faster! I wish I was better at it, but I practice very little.

Now I combine them on almost every quilt I make. I also use machine embroidery on quilts.

There are areas in quilts that the quilting doesn't show much, or as you stated, it's too hard to hand quilt.

Your top is a master piece it will still be gorgeous!
Rosa

I am grateful for the heads up on this. At first I didn't think that I would be comfortable with using both but felt I needed more quilting then I wanted to do by hand. Knowing that other do it and seem to feel it is acceptable really helps.
Teresa I appreciate you input. I definately will experiment before I even consider using the "machine Hand quilts" stitch. One neg. would be the monofilament thread, not sure I want that on this quilt. Thanks everyone.

Teresa ~ hahahaha ~ I did pull my hair out until I got the hang of it! It is very slow.
Jayne ~ I am not a fan of monofilament thread in general.

I suggest you stitch using regular thread, and skip the frustration of using that stitch since so many others combine hand and machine stitching.

I completely understand why you ask for opinions. Even though it is your quilt and we all know each quilter can do as she or he wants, it is nice to have this forum to ask opinions when you are not quite sure how to proceed.

I almost always combine hand and machine stitching. The sashing and borders are almost always machine, and then the individual blocks are hand done. I just have a little portable machine and it is hard to do a whole quilt on it. I also like the precision of the hand quilting, since I wander a bit on the machine.

I'd have to say it's up to you. However you decide to make a quilt, then that's the right way for you to do it. Personally, I quilt for ME, whether I'm giving it away, keeping it, making a potholder, hanging it on the wall, or laying a king-size accomplishment on the bed for the first time. I quilt because I enjoy it, and god help the person who tells me how to do it. If someone should have a suggestion, that's another matter completely. I've received plenty of those, and sew like I now do because I've liked some of them. So, to get me off the soapbox I'm currently standing on, you quilt like you want to quilt, and ENJOY YOURSELF.

Happy Stitching!
Dan