Rules For a Reason

Surprise, surprise!  I tried to quilt the opposite of the recommended way and it did not work in my favor.  I confess I rarely start in the center of the quilt and work my way to the edges when quilting, and for the most part I don't have any issues.  Not so much this time around.

I have no idea why, but the stretching and movement on this quilt top is the worst I've ever encountered, and I was even only doing straight lines.  I got it off the machine and it was even worse than I had originally thought.  The weird thing is that up close it bothers me A LOT, but when I look at the quilt as a whole the puckering forms an X across the entire quilt and it's kind of cool looking in a bizarre sort of way.  Do you think it will look better or worse after I wash it?  The crazy thing is that the quilting looks perfect on the back of the quilt.  Sigh.  What to do?  What to do?