There is nothing wrong with this top and I would love to see a picture of it quilted. The colors are fine.

Your quilt top is beautiful. To answer your first question, the carpenter's star is often done as one big star (which makes for a relatively fast and easy quilt top) but is also done as multiple smaller stars. One example is on this blog - http://sunporchquilts.com/. If you decide you do want to finish the quilting, and if not much quilting is already done, you might consider taking out the quilting and then quilting it in sections. There are several methods of how to do this described in Marti Michell's book, Machine Quilting in Sections. I've done that on kingsize quilts and it can be done relatively easily on a home machine. The other option would be to send the top to a longarmer, but I am afraid you or the longarmer would need to take out the stitching already done. Unless the whole quilt sandwich has been well stabilized, the longarmer would have trouble loading a partly quilted item. Taking out quilting is not nearly as bad as it sounds. I have done it...frequently...

What a beautiful quilt! Great job!

Well, first, if you google "Swoon quilts" you will get a ton of pictures of quilts with multiple blocks. The Swoon block is very, very similar to the Carpenter's Wheel block.

Second, don't worry about any boo-boos you make in quilting. Washing the quilt will make it shrink a tiny bit, and amazingly you won't be able to find any of those mistakes! :thumbup:

This is beautiful... By all means finish it. As for the quilting issue, people tend to look at the colors and patterns and not so much at the quilting on it. You can find some tutorials on binding on utube. Just set your mind to it and when you're finished you'll be surprised at how satisfied your sister and her husband will be. We are our own worst critic.

That is just GORGEOUS! I was going to suggest a border until I saw how big it already is. I also have one that size that I am determined to hand quilt, since it's all hand appliqued. I've done one block, but it's for me, so however long it takes is okay. Best of luck deciding which quilting to use.

This is just a suggestion, but based on what I've learned over the years. While I understand your wish to totally "own" this project, your sister won't care whether you or a long arm quilter finished it, when she's enjoying it on her bed. But hand quilting (even machine quilting) this monster will drag the process out for a long time. The time has come for you to get it finished and her to enjoy it. Had you not showed it to her, she wouldn't know about it and wouldn't be looking forward to receiving it ( and you might have the time to quilt it). But she does know about it and undoubtedly wants it. You chose the fabrics,designed it, and pieced it, and that's a wonderful, thoughtful gift. Now have someone quilt it and get it to her. And start a smaller project to quilt it you want...

It is beautiful, but I couldn't quilt it myself, either by hand or by my little sewing machine....I couldn't handle the size of it. I send mine to the longarmer, do my table toppers, table runners, place mats and some baby quilts my self on my little sewing machine, but physically can't wrestle a bed quilt around to machine quilt it!! Binding has become second nature to me and after a few under your belt you'll feel the same way!!

This is very beautiful - no matter how you've started quilting by hand, the person who takes over the quilting can follow your pattern, or at least come close to it. I'm a hand quilter - afraid if I purchase a long arm machine, I'll be spoiled on it and never return to my hand quilting. I've purchased many "almost completed" hand quilted quilts, and find it's rather easy to follow someone's "started" quilting project.

I have a friend who has been quilting many years. When I did my first quilt and put on the binding, she told me to put the bulk of the quilt on a chair next to the sewing machine table, to support the quilt. It worked. Try it for the binding as well as the quilting.