Quilting a Vintage Quilt Top-Answers to an email question

I received this email last weekend & thought it would be great to open the discussion to all our readers.  My comments are in red. I recently acquired a vintage quilt top that the seller claimed to be from the 50's. I'm not an experienced quilter, this will be my first at best. I hope you don't mind that I'm asking you a few questions,… and really would like to finish it, because it really