Quilting Rules

I learned again, and let's hope for the last time, that you really do need to start in the middle and work outwards when you are quilting. I started out turning an orphan block into a preemie quilt. It got too big, and too pretty, so I thought I would make it into a wall hanging or table topper. Despite my recent frustrations I've been having some success with straight line quilting so I got to work on adding some stitching in the ditch and outline quilting. I started in the middle and everything was going beautifully. But then I got the great idea to stitch around the borders before completely finishing the quilting I was going to do in the middle. There was puckering, there was pooching, there was ripping out of stitches, there was the intention to just throw the whole thing on the floor for the dog to lie on...

But no, I will persevere. I will rip out what I have to and use this as a great opportunity to learn from my mistake and never make the same one again!

So what are the rules?

1. Always use a 1/4 inch seam.

2. Press to the dark fabric.

3. Quilt from the centre out.

4. Make the backing and batting about 4 inches bigger than the top on all sides.

5. Only use quilt shop quality 100% cotton.

6. To prewash or not to prewash?

I'd love to hear your comments. Are there any more hard and fast rules that I didn't mention? Do you ever break any of these rules to great success?