Borders how do you decide

Well well, borders are my question. How do you decided what size to make those borders? Of course that is if you are making it on your own. I very rarely go by a pattern. I may attend a quilt show and see something that I like and later, sometimes years, I will remember seeing something wonderful and try to recreate it by memory.  Oh I have patterns but you will find them in pristine condition, well there is one or two I actually followed, but normally I just go for it. So then I get to borders and sometimes I just get lost in what size to make them. Oh I had a fellow retreater pull out a book that gave 'rules' for size of sashing to block size with border size to quilt size. Well I am NOT a rules person and then to think that there are rules for being creative! So at another retreat one time I was debating on borders and a fellow retreater, Gail gave me her perspective, 'I just cut my borders the width of my ruler.'
This is Gail at a sew in we had recently.

 Well I gave that a thought and grabbed the 3½" ruler and cut, sewed, then there was an 8" ruler so I cut the next ones with that. So I went and bought different size rulers and have lived by that 'rule' now. So when you are designing on your own  what dictates your border size? Do you go with the 'rules' of acceptability or just do your own thing.

Well this is a quilt I call Simple Girl. Note the borders. Not what was found in the book. But what I wanted. When making this the fellow retreater with the 'book' kept telling me I was wrong to do it this way. She finally gave up trying to make me see it the 'book' way and left me alone. I really like the results of this. I really like how it turned out. These borders came from what fabric I had left from the center top and went from there on how to use it most effectively or efficiently. And that is how I figure my borders, what do I have left and  or cut it with what ever size ruler I have.



Well the grandson turned 9 couple weeks ago and two weeks before his birthday he and his brother inform me that they need new quilts for their birthdays this year. So I went to retreat the weekend in between and had to make his quilt. Note the borders were easy to decide, had to go with how much fabric I had. I had bought fabric couple years back for him a new quilt so I got it out and got it done. I used all fabric but about one strip 4½" x 8". Yep cut it close but he loved it.

I hope he gets some good use out of it. He loves science and that kind of stuff so the planets and space was his theme. He even told which planet was which on there.

So let me know what are your thoughts on borders!