I have been thinking quite a bit about this lately. I have been working on making the medallion from the Plumeria Bed Quilt Pattern so I can display it in our booth at quilt shows and in this process decided to incorporate both styles of quilting.

When I see quilts in shows as a rule they have one style or the other. Is there a rule or is it just some arbitrary thing we do? For me some of the reason for combining the processes is in the interest of time. If I hand quilt the entire piece that takes time away from other projects but the main reason is it would be much longer before I could display the piece in the booth. The Plumeria Hawaiian Bed Quilt Pattern works very well with both. Things I considered were: the background was very dark, you would have to look very closely to see if it was hand or machine quilted and then there was the importance of the quilting on the applique for this pattern. I feel that the flowers and leaves in this pattern need quilting lines to define them. Take a look at this closeups which show the hand quilting in the applique to the right and the applique without and quilting to the left. What a difference it makes, don't you think.