I am making a quilt from a pattern where the quilt ends up square. I want it to be the same width as the pattern but longer so it ends up rectangular. The quilt is not made from square blocks ( some are rectangular, others are square, quite a bit of applique) so i can't just add another row of blocks to the top or bottom. Can I make wider borders on the top and bottom than on the sides or will the quilt police come and get me! Your ideas will be appreciated. Thanx.

It's your quilt, do whatever tickles your fancy! No police here. I've seen beautiful quilts with wider top/bottom borders.

It's your quilt, make it anyway you want to. You could add a row of some other kind of designs top and bottom and keep the borders the same or make the top and bottom wider than the side, it's yours just have fun with it.

I usually alter a pattern because I don't like square quilts either. Beds aren't square, why would we want square quilts?

I have a vintage quilt that I bought at an estate sale that has wider borders on the top and bottom than on the sides. But I like tcharlie's idea of adding a row of some other kind of blocks to the top and bottom and then keeping your borders even.

You can absolutely do whatever you want. Add borders of different widths, add more borders top and bottom than on the sides, add additional blocks top or bottom - it's your quilt. (Warning - once you start straying from the pattern, you will find that you always want to stray. It's more fun that way.)

I think I hear sirens, quick hide the quilt!

there are no quilt police...it's our horrid inner children trying to scare us!!! do what works (for you) and that is what we all should remember to do!

it's been done. so go ahead. it's your quilt and will be fine.

Do what you want. I'm doing one, where because of inaccurate planning on my part (shhh), I have to have a 10" border on the left side - rest can be whatever. Since I really don't want to do that on all 4 sides, I'm doing 10" on the left and bottom. Top and right are 5". It's artistic!

On my avatar quilt, my center panel was square...but I put thin borders on the sides of it and thicker borders on the top and bottom in order to turn it into a rectangular quilt.

Picture please.

You can see the quilt here sans border - http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-37927-1.htm. I'm adding that blue puzzle piece to the border, since I didn't count properly how many of each side I needed. So bottom and left will be 10", purely to accommodate that piece, and top and right will be 5", to keep the quilt manageable. Just bought a beautiful light brown as the border.

just think of it as design opportunities! and we know that with quilting, opportunity knocks often (at least in my house it does)