I don't know of any "rules" that must be followed in quilting, but I was told, when I first started quilting that the binding had to be sewed on by hand. I broke that "rule" because sitting in the position for hand sewing is very hard on by back and came to realize that there is no good reason to hurt while doing what I love to do. Besides that, I machine sew my pieces, machine quilt my quilts, why not have a very nice machine sewn binding also. Mary