Rules (and recipes!) are just guidelines. I take them all with a grain of salt and then do as I please. lol

Sometimes it works better than others, but I always learn something from the process.

What rules? I didn't think quilting had any rules.

If you really knew me you would laugh at this answer because I very seldom follow rules in any part of my life but I think I follow most of the rules in quilting. I don't think of them as 'rules' but as traditions that have developed because they make sense. Most of the things that have been referred to as rules are really just a best practice that someone found.

I use all the best practices I can find unless it doesn't work for me and then I don't. If it makes sense, then I am all over it. If it doesn't, I find another way.

So I think I am kind of a rule follower in quilting (but not the kind that does it because of what other people think). :|

Rules - what rules? :lol:

There is not a rule invented I have not broken. Every one listed so far I have broken and I'm sure a few more tha I did not even know were rules (except washing flannel first - learned the hard way on that one).

I run with scissors too!!! :-D

probably all of them at one point or another lol

Dont cut with my fabric scissors is the only rule in my sewing room. Other than that everything goes. Well almost everything!

THERE'S RULES ????? :roll:

I make "it" work for me - whatever "it" is, but I only use fabric scissors for fabric because a dull scissor (and yes, paper WILL dull them) is a pain in the neck. Other than that - when I don't follow the rules, I get to be creative.

My favorite saying in the Pirate movies: Pirate rules are more like ...guidelines. So that is what I live by - except for swaps - then they are rules.

I use white thread on the machine exclusively... even if the fabric I'm quilting is dark. Oh and I'm really bad at remembering to change the needle.

What else... oh I'm planning a signature quilt, but I don't like any of the "signature blocks" that I've found to make. So they'll be signing the center of log cabins.

I don't cut my bias strips on the bias. I'd rather not have any stretch or give in them (and I save fabric).

I guess I don't follow any rules. If the colors look good to me I use them, etc. I do use patterns but sometimes I like to add my own things. There are no quilt police voices in my head, thank God.

This sounds very familiar

I'm new enough to quilting that I'm sure there is probably a rule for everything......but I don't know it :) Ignorance is bliss!

Rules..........what rules.

[quote=Darlene]

I was just at a retreat with a good friend from Cincinnati (spelling?) who'd recently been to the Columbus Quilt Show.
She said it was terrific, good vendors - She bought me a beautiful collection of FQs now going into a quilt. I googled the designer's name and bought alot more on line.

Terrible picture of both of us, but good of Smidgen, her dog, whom we all loved. Five of us are at my son's house in upstate New York for a week. We do it every year, driving from 4 different states. We quilt, eat too much, drink gallons of wine and catch up.

Oh, I do that too!! :oops: :oops:

I too prefer to think the "rules" are merely guidelines...sometimes stepping off the path leads to more interesting discoveries.

I don't do rules, when I am creating. Lets face it every quilt we make has it's own personality.

I figure it is my quilt and I make my own rules but of course there are times when I wished I had followed some rules when a block doesn't go together the way I want.

If you could see the quilt I'm finishing up for my two year old grandbaby...if there are quilt police, I'm done for.
In my own defense, your honor, I didn't know what I know now, when I did that to that fabric!
She will love it to death though and then I will make her a bigger and much nicer quilt in a couple years. :XD:

I break any rule if I find a way that works better for me. That's what makes the quilts I make mine!

I agree!!!!!

Ii probably don't keep any of the quilting rules religiously.

I run with scissors. Is that a quilting rule?

I only prewash if it smells.

I don't use leaders & enders.

I don't change my needle every project.

Wow, for an accountant I'm pretty radical...

Darren

What???? There are rules?

I don't prewash fabrics.

I do iron instead of pressing most of the time. >_>

I don't try to get everything perfect - sometimes I see something is messed up, but shrug and say "what the heck, why not..." and continue on.

As a rule, I'm a rule breaker. (pun intended!) However, over the many, many years of quilting, I have developed my own set of rules that I rarely break. Having had a purple fabric bleed, I now wash all my fabrics as soon as I bring them home. After years of tugging, easing, stretching to get my seams to match, I've become obsessive about cutting accurately and sewing an accurate 1/4" seam and I've been so much happier with my quilting experiences and my quilts. I usually don't press, except with my finger nail, until my block is done or sometimes until the whole quilt is done if I'm in a hurry. I used to use my sewing scissors for everything, but being cheap has caused me to be more particular and now I don't have to keep buying new ones! I don't pin unless I'm sewing curves . Like everyone, I've heard horror stories about cuts from rotary cutters, but I had to learn for myself. I cut myself once when my open rotary cutter got buried under some fabric, and I tried and tried to remember to close it, but I often forgot, so I bought the kind that closes when you release it. LOVE IT! I don't believe in following color wheel color combinations. I put colors together that I love and that look good to me! I change patterns when I feel like it, or make up my own. And I have LOTS of UFOs. Way, way, way too many. I need to make a rule to finish what I start, but then, what fun would that be???

My UFO count has exploded since I joined this site! Just the stuff from swaps alone... plus all the other stuff I started 'cause I found inspiration here... yeah. Waaay too many UFO's but I still want to start new projects!

Me, neither!

Didn't know we had rules... :)

It depends on what you mean by "RULES". I believe the following SHOULD NOT be broken:
1. Accurate marking and measuring
2. Accurate cutting
3. Accurate seams
4. Pressing for flat seams and blocks

These take much of the frustration out of quiltmaking.

I follow these, and break all the rest of the "rules".

Gee's Bend quilts pretty much break all of these rules.

I never knew about rules. I know I learned how to and techniques and tricks and tips and if it worked I used them....

I learn so much here. I even heard about the quilt police here lol. I would like to meet one of those lol...

You probably don't really want to meet one of those...
:lol:

I think we all set our own rules, don't we? We come up with 'our' rules by trial and error and what works best for us. I don't think of them as rules...it's more like 'methods'.

And the awesome thing to me is, the "different" things we show to each other are some of the more interesting tips and techniques I come across anywhere!

I'm guilty of using an ink pen to trace on fabric. :oops:

Touche :lol: