Spring Quilting Bananza

Here is my lasted quilting project and by far the longest project I have endured. I used this pattern and made it larger for my project.

A few things you probably notice.  The squares aren't lined up perfectly on the front well heck they aren't even lined up 30% right. On the back you'll notice the fabric does a kind of whooshing to the left and then to the right and then to the left again.  So let me tell  you why this happened.

1. Low-quality material. (note: lesson learned) By "quality" fabric I mean the weave of the fabric is not snug and close together. It almost appears that some of my fabric choices are missing some strings.  This also makes the material very thin.  By having low quality fabric it isn't something I did it was purchased like that.  I'm sure a non-novice quilter would be able to spot the difference,  however I would still consider myself a novice quilter.
2. Slippery Batting.  I thought I was getting quite a deal by purchasing batting that was iron on. When layering the quilting sandwich you iron all the pieces together and then bast as normal.  I think what was "supposed" to happen was the layers were going to semi melt together, however after following the instructions that isn't what happened. I actually tried it numerous times to maybe reactivate the glue. Actually ironing the batting only made it slippery probably causing most of the wooshy lines.
3. Large Size. As you'll notice the pattern I used was for a baby quilt but I wanted to make it "people sized" so I got the fabric I needed and instead of calculating a million different numbers I just cut all the material I had.  This size was too big to both baste and to machine quilt. The finished size was somewhere about 80"x70".
4. Begin Quilter. I am just learning to machine quilt so I am by no means a professional at quilting.  I struggled with keeping the material going through the machine at a steady pace, and for some reason when I press the foot petal after stopping it goes lightening speed.  This is probably what caused the majority of the "whoosh-iness" on the backing.

So, I have learned lots from making my first Large quilt. This will obviously be for personal use since I am still learning and it is not by any means "gifting" quality.  I'm off to more sewing...