I did a lesson in "Big Stitch Quilting" and we all loved it, it was easy and so nice to be able to do something by hand. The effects were great and the only "rule" was to maintain stitch size, didn't matter what size as long as they were even. As a matter of interest we used Perle cotton from
http://www.threadart.com/c-283-pearl-cotton-thread.aspx beautiful quality.