Help me decide..I'm thinking "into the rubbish bin"
 

For the first time ever I am considering throwing out a quilt. My intentions with my 78" x 78" Jacobs Ladder quilt was to quilt it in a diagonal grid all over. I am only about 1/3 of the way doing my first direction diagonals and I am having serious thoughts about continuing. I am getting quite a lot of "pull and poof" in the fabric between my stitching lines and frankly, it's looking ghastly and there is no way I can even contemplate pulling out all my stitching, re-basting and starting all over. I initially tried doing vertical columns but they too ended up with "sagging".
I was so careful with my pin basting....over 600 safety pins and 2 split fingers says I'm a little hero in that department! I have my quilt well supported with tables behind and to the left of my machine which is sunken flush into the table and I am mindful not to sew too fast with the walking foot.
(1)Is this worth persisting with or should I just write it off and move on?
(2) Once I do the diagonal stitching in the opposite direction is this likely to straighten out my sags?
(3) Would I be better off to not do diagonal griding but instead just continue with this one direction of stitching and then matchstick the columns?
(4) Do I make the trip to the rubbish bin with it? Apart from a heck of a lot of time invested this quilt was not a particularly expensive investment.....blacks were all made with scraps from my stash ad therein lies the problem perhaps...a lot of different, and possibly inferior quality fabrics have gone into the blocks....? distortion/bias problems.

I'm really looking for some guidance on this one..never had this sort of problem before and don't want to persevere for another week or so if I'm only heading for disappointment. I don't mind a bit of "sag" here and there in my quilts but this is pretty much all over my columns even though the photos don't show it.

No quilt deserves to be trashed! At the very least, store it with your UFOs in the back of the closet for a while. I'm sure you will get some wonderful suggestions on how to fix it here. It's 2:30 AM here right now, but in a few hours, folks will wake up and there will be tons of help going your way. For now, take a deep breath and have a cup of coffee. BTW, it really is a beautiful quilt.

To my very inexperienced eyes you quilting looks fine!

I think you should finish the quilt and if you are still not happy with it - give to someone who will love it.

Have you considered trying glue basting? There will be no movement in your fabric while quilting. Yes, you would need to rip what you’ve quilted thus far, but I think you’ll be happy with the end result.

Jacob's Ladder is my very favorite pattern. It would break my heart if you tossed it in trash can. I sleep under a J.L. every night--even with AC. Surely it will please you after being washed! Laundering can change the quilting look.

Agree wirh this. I made 2 quilts from JL. I love the look of this pattern. I bet it looks a lot better once it's finished and washed and dried. If you are still displeased, give it to a charity. I know the final decision is yours but I would suggest you finish it.

Yes, I have tried glue basting on other quilts (including 505) numerous times but find that it doesn't stick very well with the wool/poly batting I use. And no, ripping out stitching is not an option:(. What I am trying to work out is whether I can minimise my problem by choosing either to matchstick, or to grid the quilt. If neither option will help then I may bin it as I'm losing interest in investing much more time on it.

It looks like a lovely quilt so I would definitely not be taking it to the garbage bin.
Is it possible that what you are seeing is some stretch along the diagonal from handling the fabric? If so you might try laying it out flat and giving it a bit of a steam press. I have noticed that diagonally stretch fabric sort of shrinks back to shape when it gets steamed.

Part of the problem might be you are going all in one direction. Try alternating the direction one row in one direction, next row in opposite direction so you create a grid instead of just rows.
It truely looks ok - don’t toss it.
Once it is all quilted and laundered you probably won’t be able to tell there was an issue, everything will look great.

I think if you do the diagonal stitching to complete the grid it will be fine. I machine quilt a lot ( both long arm and domestic machine) and it sounds like you've chosen wool/polyester batting. Laundering may not make that much of a difference depending upon how much polyester is in your batting. I know exactly what you mean about not being able to even contemplate pulling out stitches: I've got one UFO to prove it!! Good luck and let us know how it works out.