bearisgray

I do have some - for myself.

do you have any? If so, what are they?

Iceblossom

Ha! I laugh at and challenge rules, especially those I feel are left behind from hand sewing. Among other scoffing, I press open almost all the time. Disregard all sorts of other rules -- but I pretty much always make "competition" bias double fold french bias binding. There are times when I will use straight of grain, but by repeated doing the bias and turning the corners and continuous seams, I've gotten pretty good at it.

bearisgray

My must do thing - fabrics must be washed before I will cut them.

Synnove

Prewash fabrics. Always. With color catchers for dark fabrics. I need to know that nothing's going to run and nothing's going to shrink. As for rules I break, in my book all points and corners do not have to meet. If I do my best and it isn't perfect I don't fuss over it. It's still warm and beautiful, and I'm happy.

Onebyone

I tend to look at a design and think how can I make this easier and skip all the steps. For instance I gave up cutting out long borders . Borders are a pain to me. I cut a fabric block out of the border fabric and sew it to the end of each row and the top and bottom. No measuring, long seams, and never a wavy border. it's so much easier for me.

CathieD

I love this question! My rules, in no particular order are:

Stick with whatever rulers I'm using throughout the entire project. I've found small differences between rulers and manufacturers (I used calipers to measure) that can greatly effect the final measurements of a quilt.

Do one thing better with each quilt.

Don't freak out over the 1/4" seam allowance. Just use the same guideline on your machine for every single seam.

If I don't like something about a quilt I'm making I won't like it any better after I've put countless hours in. I take the time and fix it at the outset and don't move forward until it's resolved. I've had to put quilts in a timeout until I've figured out what the problem is.

I had to learn to love each step of making a quilt. I love some steps more than others.

After every quilt I finish I completely clean my workroom, my tables and my machines. It's less stressful for me to work in a clean space.

Stitchnripper

Never prewash. Sometimes there might be a questionable fabric but that's it.
Press seams open
Use any kind of thread even serger thread
Try new things if I want to - keep what I like.
Discard the phrase "I was taught to..."
No stash
Finish everything which means don't start one til the next is done. I do have two projects going. One to take and one at home.

I had lunch with two quilting friends today and yes, we agree, I am a very strange quilter.

SusieQOH

Remember the line in Grease where he said "the rules are there ain't no rules" ? That pretty much sums it up for me.


Onebyone- I'm trying to picture what you wrote. Are you saying that you put a different piece of fabric on each border? If so how does that not make it wavy? I'm asking bc I have wavy borders way too often, no matter how many people I watch on Youtube.

Onebyone

I figured this out when I was making quilt as you go rag quilts. I made a frame around the quit using solid square blocks. Maybe I can explain it better. When I sew a row of blocks together I add a block as wide as I want the border to be but the same size as the block lengthwise. The first row will get a block added to the first block and last block as well as on the top. Each block on the top row will have a border block sewn to the top of the block. Reverse at the bottom row. Like adding another block to the row but it isn't a pieced block just solid fabric.

petthefabric

I'm tired and sick. To @#$% with rules. Tomorrow when I feel better. I'll revisit this.
In my defense, I know I'll not be happy with the product if I avoid all rules, so I'm not sewing.

So there's one rule: only sew when I'll do my best.