Now this is a hard question. My personal opinion is that if she has that kind of talent, and she has pieced the entire thing by hand, it would be a dishonor to her beautiful work to machine quilt it. I opt for hand quilting. That being said, if she hand-quilts with perle cotton, small crotchet thread or embroidery floss, the stitches aren't as small and she could quilt it quicker. IMHO. She can echo quilt the piece work 1/4" in and I think it would be stunning. Am sure there will be other opinions though, lol. BTW I am no where near good enough to enter anything