I was taught that if you are hand quiltlng you always start in the center and work your way out. Machine quilting is different. You need to pin baste your entire quilt, including the borders, before you begin to quilt. If not, the borders may end up shifting some and make the quilt not lay flat when you are finished. If you are machine stippling, then you can just start in an upper corner and stipple back and forth across the width of the quilt, just like if it was on a long arm machine. Hope this helps.