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10 Quilting Rules I Don’t Follow!

There are lots of unwritten rules in quilting that many of us get drummed into us by teachers or social media.

In this post, I am going to expose 10 of these quilting ‘rules’ that I don’t follow to illustrate how bendable these so-called rules really are.

break the quilting rules

Have you ever heard of the quilt police? The truth is they don’t really exist.

Sometimes they take the form of real people telling us a certain way to do something in our sewing rooms is the ‘right way’ but often they are our own internal voices telling us we are doing something wrong!

I am describing the practices in my ruleless sewing room not to get you to do things ‘my way’ but to encourage you to question the internal voices or quilting rules that aren’t serving you.

I hope hearing about the rules that I break will help you choose which rules you want to keep following and which ones you want to break to make your quilting and sewing more fun for you!

Rule 1: Always Iron your Fabric before you Sew!

This is one I get lots of comments about on my YouTube channel. I do not always iron my fabric before I start piecing.

un-ironed yellow fabric
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. And when I don’t it is usually because I am so impatient to start sewing (the fun part!) that I want to skip the prep.

Could this cause problems for me down the line in my quilt? Maybe…but I like to press after I sew each seam rather than at the beginning and it seems to work for me.

Bending this rule helps me avoid some of the procrastination that might occur if I were strict with myself about having to do things in a certain order every time I sew.

So if I feel like pressing first – I do! And if I just want to get straight to sewing – I don’t!

Rule 2: Beginners Should Start with a Simple Pattern

Is this a rule or just common wisdom? In any case, I didn’t do it.

When I started quilting, my very first quilt had no pattern, and my second quilt used a hodgepodge of free block patterns from the Internet (2nd quilt below – I called it my ‘learner’s quilt‘).

learner's quilt sampler
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

Part of the fun for me was to work things out myself and see what I could create that was original to me.

I still watched tons of YouTube videos and read lots of blog posts but it didn’t suit me to follow someone else’s list of steps. In fact, when I tried that later it made the whole quilting process so much less enjoyable for me.

But that’s just me. Many folk love following a well-written pattern – and they can be super helpful…heck I write patterns myself!

So I am not knocking patterns, all I am saying is that you should go with whatever gets you most excited to quilt – whether you are a beginner or not! If that means following a pattern to the letter – do it! And if that means winging it and making it up as you go along – do it!

Rule 3: Always Use 100% Cotton Batting

The heading above is a bit of a cheat as it is taking the place of lots of ‘rules’ I’ve heard over the years about the best type of batting to use for all sorts of projects.

Many people will tell you 80/20 batting is the best or wool is the best, etc, etc. I don’t follow any of those rules.

joining-leftover-batting-5
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

I have tested far too many battings myself and in the end what it came down to for me was the waste of buying all-new batting every time when there are so many unused textiles out there in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I do buy new batting for special projects, but I am also trying to push myself to use more reclaimed materials as batting – like flannel sheets for example, or buying other people’s battings scraps and piecing them together.

I have talked more about this in another post about alternatives to store-bought quilt batting.

Rule 4: Always Cut Your FPP Patches to Size

I love foundation paper piecing (FPP) and I even design my own FPP patterns. But what I don’t always do is cut the fabric for each patch to the right size before I start.

Usually, FPP patterns will tell you the size to cut each patch and/or have a template you can use to cut your patches. I sometimes do this, but even when I do I will cut larger than they said so that I am never caught short on my patch.

fabric scraps with FPP template pieces
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

Other times when I just want to get straight to sewing I won’t cut anything out at all…I’ll take whatever size fabric I have that I can see is larger than the patch and sew. I can then trim the excess off later.

Many folk have commented when they’ve seen me doing this that I am making it harder for myself….I don’t agree. I will trim off to my 1/4″ seam allowance at the end of each patch regardless of how big the fabric was to start, so if I don’t want to also cut first – why should I? My sewing room, my rules.

Rule 5: Always Pre-wash Your Fabric

I think we all know there are two camps on this one. I personally am in the never pre-wash camp.

quilt washing instruction care cards
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

I can see why many quilters swear by pre-washing, but again for me, the risk of procrastination by putting another prep step in my way before the sewing actually starts is larger than the risk of shrinkage or fabric bleeding.

I also love my color catchers and always put them in my first wash before I gift a quilt as I mentioned in this post: 6 Tips for Gifting Quilts

Rule 6: Only Buy enough Fabric for the Quilt you are Making

Which of us hasn’t broken this rule? I have never been able to follow this one myself.

For one thing, I don’t buy fabric for specific quilts, I am more of a buy-for-my-stash sort of a fabric buyer.

I have a real issue with buying too much of other people’s cast-offs, whether that is their bags of scraps, remnants or even just quilt shop bolt ends. I talk about all the places I buy fabric cheaply for quilting here.

rolled fabric for storage
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

The result of that is, I have too much fabric, like so many quilters, but I am also very good at getting creative with what I have.

If I don’t have enough of a certain fabric for what I am making I will find the closest alternative in my stash or change the pattern so that I don’t need as much. I won’t head back to the quilt store to try to color match.

Rule 7: Be Careful About Cutting on the Bias

There are very good reasons for sewers and quilters to learn about the straight of grain vs the bias in fabric.

Depending on which way you cut your fabric in regards to this it can make your fabric more stretchy (on the bias).

cutting jelly roll strip set for stroller quilt
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

So there is lots of good advice out there for quilters….all of which I ignore. Not because it isn’t valid, but because I don’t come to my quilting for perfection, I come to it for fun and creativity. And checking which way the fibres are running in my fabric before I cut is yet another fiddly non-creative step that doesn’t appeal to me.

Am I causing myself issues in my quilting? Very probably? Is it worth me adding yet another step of prep to my quilting process to fix them? No. Not for me at this time. Who knows one day I might change my mind on this, but for now…it’s not getting my attention.

Rule 8: Only Enter a Quilt Show if you Think you Can Win

I would never have thought to put this one on a list of quilting rules if it wasn’t that another quilter said it to me at a quilt show.

I had entered a quilt show for only the second time ever and I was walking around the show and someone saw my entrant’s badge. They asked what quilt I had in the show and then asked if I’d won anything. I replied ‘No but that isn’t really what it’s about is it?’, to which the woman said ‘oh yes it is!’

I was honestly shocked in the moment. I didn’t know what to say. The comment was just so full of all the gatekeeping and perfectionism that I don’t like in some of the quilt groups I’ve tried joining and it made me feel bad for a little while.

jenny doan
Meeting the Doan Girls at Festival of Quilts

But the more I thought about it I just realized she was plain wrong. There are so many benefits to entering a quilt show that don’t include winning a prize:

  • You get to feel like you are part of a community;
  • you get to see your work hanging up like a piece of art;
  • you get to meet other quilters you might never have met (see photo above of myself and Tom Bathgate with the Doan Girls from Missouri Star Quilt Company!);
  • and you sometimes get folk saying nice things about your quilt, which they couldn’t have said if they hadn’t seen it!

At the end of the day most of the quilts entered in any given show don’t win, so I am going to keep entering my quilts in quilt shows even if they never win anything!

Rule 9: Pre-cut Your Scraps to Make them Easier to Use

Many quilters find it easier to use up their fabric scraps if they trim them down to a size that they use on a regular basis. The classic example is a 2.5″ square.

I personally don’t do this. I don’t do it because I make so many different types of quilts that I don’t have a favorite cut size and I don’t want to limit the possibilities of what my fabric could be used for by cutting it to a given size before I know what I want to make with it.

I completely understand why pre-cutting scraps makes them more manageable and easier to use for many people, but it doesn’t for me…so I don’t do it.

fabric storage ideas - rolliing fabric
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

I like to roll my fabrics that are a yard or less and store them in color-coordinated bins so I can easily see what I have and pull from it easily. You can read more about my fabric storage habits here.

Rule 10: Always Close Your Rotary Cutter!!!

This one I concede I probably should follow…but I don’t.

I am very contrary with this one. If my kids are in the sewing room the cutter is closed and they are told repeatedly to stay away from it. But if I am on my own and in the zone sewing…it’s usually open.

open rotary cutter
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

I have had many comments on my YouTube videos telling me to be careful about this. I can’t say I haven’t been warned. But, I haven’t cut myself so far….and until I do I don’t think I will break this habit.

The way I sew, especially when I am doing improv or crumb piecing, means I am constantly sewing and then making little trims and if I closed my rotary cutter every time I would just be opening it up 2 seconds later to trim again…so I’m lazy and I don’t.

But that is just me…I’m not counseling you to keep your blade open. As my YouTube subscribers will tell you, injuries do happen!

Quilting Rules I Don’t Follow Video

Here is the video version of this discussion:

Make Your Own Rules

break the quilting rules
Photo: Scrap Fabric Love

So what is the point of me telling you about all the rules I break? To give you a chance to re-examine the rules you follow in your sewing room so you can decide if they are serving you or not.

If they make your sewing life easier or more fun – keep them! If they don’t….how could you change them or break them altogether so that you enjoy your quilting and sewing more?

I’ll leave that with you to ponder.

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