Who - ahhh!! High five!

Jan in VA
(Is this not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard?!)

I've never seen or heard that. I've seen quilts at shows with all different size borders and some with no borders.

That's a new one for me....many antique and award winning quilts do not have borders. Surely it is purely a design decision. Sounds like pure piffle to me.

Funny how some ppl think they know it all!!

Do what YOU WANT. However, the last few patterns I purchased all had wide borders. Hmmmm....perhaps it is a trend to get us to buy more fabric! I do what I want with borders, but I do know some quilters that follow the pattern instructions to the T.

The more modern look (as well as antique) is to have no borders at all.

The rule I learned, way back in the day, was that it's visually pleasing to have your borders be a multiple of your block size. So if your block is 12 inches, then that suggests that a 6 inch, or 4 or 3 or 2 or a combo of those would look good, whereas a 10 inch block you go with a 2 or a 5. If I'm ever stumped for what to do for a border, and for some odd reason feel the need to border a quilt, I think of that guideline, and may or may not follow it.

The only reason I can think of for mandating wide border is that it gives you space to quilt a more elaborate pattern, if that's the look you're going for.

RST

only one rule ---my quilt my choice [iwill be open to lots of advice/sugestions]----wow i am impressed i only had to edit x 3]

It probably was a teacher that had a 6 inch wide ruler.

I've taken more than my fair share of blue ribbons and have never heard this before. Some traditional quilts like flower garden generally have NO border.

Someone probably got carried away with his/her own importance. I have heard that a visually comfortable size for both sashings and borders is an even divisor of the block size, thus for 12" blocks, 1,2,3,4,6 or 12" would be visually easier than 5,7,8,9 or 11". Nonetheless, it still is not a hard and fast rule. I will continue to do what feels comfortable for me.

ditto that!