Where in N. VA? I live in DE and if you were close enough I could come help you hand quilt. By the way I thing the quilt is gorgeous! PM me and we can chat.

Gorgeous!!

I wanted to chime in and say that I think the top is very pretty! I can completely understand why your sis loves it.

No help with hand quilting here...so no advice in relation to that problem.

It's going to be beautiful no matter how it gets quilted. I have used a Carpenter Star block in a quilt with other blocks. My son loved his sister's Carpenter Star so I made one of his blocks with her scraps. I think it was about 16".

It's funny, but the' long arm vs do-it-yourself way ' sounds a lot like the 'old hand vs machine piecing' or the newer 'hand vs machine quilting.' Lots of people think the hard, slow way is the best. I'm old, too, but I'm tickled this long arm stuff has started! I'm happy to hand over my quilt - and I LOVE to machine quilt my smaller projects and have for years! Big, hard to handle quilts get done -well - and I'm able to get them to the recipient and on to the next project. If you want to fool around quilting for years, go ahead - it's your quilt after all. But don't let ANYONE tell you a long armed quilt is not as good-or authentic!!

I love this quilt. The colors are really nicely contrasting. If I were in your shoes, I'd send it out to be quilted. Your sister will love it.

Beautiful quilt ... love the colors.

you can do it by yourself it is not hard to quilt it on your machine it just takes time as far as binding just goggle binding there are a lot on line i like crafty.com your blocks are beautiful i quilt all my own quilts on my sewing machine I know how you feel about not doing everything yourself. I couldn't give a quilt to anyone if i didn't do all the work myself. wish you lived closer. I also do hand quilting.

You did a great job on this. I love the colors. I think sage green is the "in" color right now.

It is a beautiful quilt.