Knowing when to put a w.i.p. away

Today I brought out the JellyRoll Snowmen top to get it ready for quilting. I had bought some very inexpensive poly batt from Walmart to use in this project - I just felt that for a quilt like this I didn't want to put too much into it.

While I was spray basting it, I realized what I knew when I was making the top was true - I didn't really like how it turned out. The curse of the Christmas quilts strikes again. I have made, or tried to make, a few holiday themed quilts and never finished any of them or if I did they've gone away, hee hee.

But I didn't listen to that voice, that one that we often try to ignore, and proceeded anyway. The initial stitch in the ditch quilting went badly and I ended up with a big ripple - something that hasn't happened to me in years. If I felt the quilt wasn't good enough to be treated right, with a good bat, then why was even quilting it?

The redwork snowman was part of a quilt pattern (The Snowman Collector by The Stitch Connection) that I really should have made more attention to throughout the year - I think I'll try to make myself do a block of the month with this quilt and make it as should it be and then finally at Christmas '09 I'll have a real holiday quilt!