Hi, I'm curious to know how many quilters piece with all blocks sewn either keeping the width of fabric or length of fabric consistent. I generally piece width of fabric throughout. I mentioned that to a friend and she thought I was being too anal and said she'd never heard of anyone doing that. Since I am a longarm quilter it really makes a difference in the stability of the overall quilt. I've only seen it mentioned in one article that it should be done this way so perhaps I am being "Anal Annie."
Annaf

I would think that you would cut on the grain with quilt piecing just as you would with apparel. I try to cut my pieces on the grain.

i never thought about that before. now that i have, i realize that i cut for blocks
selvedge to selvedge, but i cut the borders on the same quilt parallel to selvedge.
interesting. how do you cut borders then?

I generally cut my top and bottom borders selvage to selvage and if I have plenty of fabric I would cut side borders the length of fabric.
One thing that really be an issue is when a client has constructed the design area of the quilt without paying much attention to making sure all seams meet correctly etc resulting in fullness and other issues and then cuts the borders from the length of fabric. Now there is a bunch of fullness that has become trapped by the borders that have little or no "give".
It's quite a challenge to tame the problem areas but so far I've made out ok.

I do it, keep the grain constant (lengthwise grain running top to bottom) in the construction for three reasons
...because all my quilts have a sleeve so they can be hung and I don't want them to sag
...because the fabrics reflect light differently depending on the grain and that makes the colors appear different
...because it drives me crazy if the fabric print goes in different directions
So do I win the persnickity award?

I guess it would kind of depend on the quilt. For a scrap quilt out of squares it is what ever I grab next and however I grab it. For a patterened quilt I try to be consistant. Having worked with wools and cordoroys a lot in making cloths I had to be very careful. Some of that just carried over.

when i'm strip-piecing, i try to cut my strips along the length of the fabric. since it doesn't stretch along the length, my strips are less likely to ripple. also, once i've cut them apart and start joining sets to each other, the fabric between seams will stretch, which means i can ease when i need to ensure the intersections match up without puckers.

i try to cut all my borders along the length. when i do that and starch them heavily, i don't get ruffles.

great info. That's what I do, but never really gave it much thought.