I am NOT a quilter... But I can pretend to be!

My sister-in-law Courtney is a quilter. A very, very, very, very, very, VERY good one. She makes beautiful quilts. And they're all perfectly straight and quilted all cute. She has made several quilts and blankets for my little brood, and they LOVE them. And she would whip out more for my kids if I wanted her to, she's awesome like that. But for some dumb reason I decided that I wanted to make my kids each their own quilt. And tackle the whole dang thing myself. It's not that I haven't appreciated all her hard work and talent. She has spent hours and hours and lots of money on my kids wonderful quilts. But here's the thing: I think it's mostly that I wanted my kids to have a blanket just for them made just by their mom. But let me tell you, I am NOT a quilter. We're talking straight stitch 7th grade Home Economics here... So 2 years ago I decided to jump into the Relief Society quilting class that a lady in my ward was teaching. I even bought a new sewing machine. And I did good. We did a small table runner. I picked out some yummy colors (I DO think that I have a knack for picking colors and patterns that go together)and went to town. Through that class I finished the table runner. It took about 5 months, 'cuz I only worked on it there, but I FINISHED it! And it didn't look too shabby! So I decided to tackle my kids quilts next. I've spent hours on hours putting together three of them (over the last two years), one for Blake, one for Emmalee, and one for Jarom. I have Jarom's blocks put together, but need to sew them all together to finish the top. The top is almost done on Blake's. and Emmalee's is currently being quilted! I'm really trying to get Em's done for her birthday in 23 days, 'cuz I promised her it would be done ages ago, and I'm trying to really meet this deadline. She's turning 8, so I think it would be perfect. So I'm trying to "quilt" the thing now. I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get it straight so I could spray the batting down and stick the two pieces together. I would get the one side all flat and smooth and then turn it over and smooth out that side and then when I got that side done, I would turn it back over and the other side would no longer be smooth anymore. I tried to smooth it out again like five times and every time I did the other side would become unsmooth. SO frustrating. I got it as smooth as I could and have been sewing it together for like 8 hours now. The front looks good, but the back is not turning out how I want it to and I can't figure out how to fix it. I really don't want to pick it all out and start over again. But it just looks sloppy. So I'm trying to decide what to do. I think I'm just going to finish it. The top looks great, it just doesn't look wonderful on the back. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I'll post pics when I get it all done. Wish me luck to get it done!