Testing the Dies

Lets start pretty with a nice fabric stack- I am enticing you in...

Interested?  Well now I've caught your attention it is carrot and stitck, the carrot comes at the end but meanwhile I have been testing my Accuquilt dies and not wanting to waste fabric I have gone to my ugly pile of 1980s rejects that I use to test ideas and shapes so I apologise for the dull fabrics but its all in the name of testing.  I was really happy with the Drunkard's Path die, it made economical use of fabric, cut a shape I would struggle to cut consistently by hand and added the handy notches.  I find the block useful and have other ideas for it in the future. The next die I wanted was 2.5 strip cutter.  this is a giant of a die designed so a folded piece of fabric will cut a 2 full fabric width strips 2.5 inches wide, handy for binding, sashing etc  But that is not all it will do...

Once you have cut a stack of 2.5 inch strips you can lay one pile down the centre- roll it through and you will have 1.25 inch strips.  You do have to place carefully, I tired using a bit of chalk to help line up but the spongy surface is not great for this.  Amy recommends a Sharpie for this. You could use masking tape for temporary hold but keep it well away from the cutting blades.  Better than this is placing the strips at a right angle, you will need to trim them, I did it to 5.25 inches, but it is a quick way to cut a huge stack of 2.25 inch squares, especially if you used the full length of the die.  It takes a bit more patience to do diamonds on the same die.  The strip needs to be lined up at a 45 degree angle to the cutting blades and trimmed at either end so it doesn't over hang

Chalk and masking tape would help again, I rushed this so my results could've been more accurate.

Diamonds are hard to cut with a standard quilt ruler so I like this feature but I think I would use scraps for this, roll them through to produce short strips and then diamond cut them.  It does make the strip cutter more versatile than I first thought.

 My final choice was the value die- this is what I always chose in giveaways!  It was more limited than I realised. It is designed to cut the shapes separately not all together unless you want to waste your fabric!  The shapes are compatible with each other, the triangles form a 2.5 inch square, the big square is 5 inches so you could use them together to create blocks.

The blades run off centre and I tried lining the fabric up to the edge of the whole die and then with the blades- I thought it was best lined up with the blades- the grain is straight and the accuracy is fine.

The best shapes are the triangles, I find these harder to rotary cut accurately and these stitch together without dog ears to trim and make neat half square triangle blocks.  With a little stack of 6 layers you can cut 12 triangles.  The squares cut fine but I would need to precut a strip and carefully fold it when I might as well cut 6 squares with a rotary cutter or using the strip cutter so not so useful for me.

The value die is what it says- good value- 3 shapes in one die but you are not really getting the benefits of bulk which is what the accuquilt does so well.  If I was choosing again I would go for a triangles die that cuts a lot more triangles in one go.   If enough of you register for this... 

 I might just do that!- No obligation really :)

So if I was you and I had 3 dies to choose, I would consider:  What shapes do you use a lot in your sewing?  I think any dies with curves are great as these are hard to cut using other methods.  The 2.5 strip cutter offers more variety  than you would think.  I like the triangle dies like this as they come pre snipped and easier to match up and will cut a lot more than the value die.  If you are an applique fan there are a huge number of applique blocks and there is a new ric rac die with curves all the way.  If you like rag style quilting there are rag dies, all the snipping done for you- saves a heap of work!  

So back to pretties- tutorial coming for this soon- 

Courthouse Steps cushion/pillow in yellows and greys, I am just waiting for some more grey fabric- I didn't realise I had so little!

and lets not forget this...

Comments are now closed!  Thankyou for all the entries.

To win an Accuquilt Baby Go! plus 3 dies of your choice with cutting boards included please leave a comment below.  Want something to comment on?  I have a big stack of Little Folks voiles that I want to make into a single sized quilt for me- it must be a quilt as you go friendly block and with quite chunky pieces-I want the fabric to shine! Any suggestions would be welcome.  Plus any experience you have had machine quilting Little Folks would also be good- I can't do hand quilting,  good for a quilt but bad for my hands. 

 Otherwise recommend me something in your comment- music, recipes, books, blogs, sewing, whatever, I don't mind.  

Your email must be in your profile or your comment- Are you a no-reply blogger? Check here International entries are welcome, the generous folks at Accuquilt will send this straight to the winner anywhere in the world!  I won't reply to comments this time but I will look at what you recommend for Little Folks or anything else!

Comments close 6.30 am GMT Friday 9th Sept.  Random Number will chose the lucky winner.

Sewing A Drunkard's Path- flippity doodah

I have finished my accuquilt cut Drunkard's path quilt top- it is only a mini- 7 blocks by 3.  I love quilt tops, I feel they lose a little something when they become a quilt, some of the delicacy of the single layer.

The drunkard's path block is not the easiest to sew with convex and concave curves but the accurately cut shapes and the notches help.  I tried sewing these a few ways, pins/no pins, different pieces on top plus following the suggestion from Ebony Love in the newsletter- you can sign up here...

I started off with Ebony's method and changed the end because I couldn't get it to work consistently.  This method has been the most accurate and needs the least pins and prep!  Like many others, I cannot bear to hear my voice- I talk too fast, sound a bit posh (belies my sometimes sweary self) and mispronounce words with nerves- "steeech" instead of "stitch", but I like to share an effective technique, so here goes!    I am off to test the dies and will do the Go! Baby giveaway next week.  Enjoy, the secret is all in the flip x

If you'd rather stitch by hand, Laura pointed me to this tutorial for a hand sewn method.

GO Gadget go!

I have been playing with the Accuquilt Baby Go!   for a week now so I thought it was time to share my findings and my makings.  It has been surprising.  This is an expensive piece of kit, especially in the UK- we don't get the offers the USA customers get- so it really needs to justify itself in my eyes.   I have read a zillion blogger reviews so I knew there were several things I wanted to look out for- cutting and grain, wastage, quality of cutting, and the type of fabrics that can be cut.  

The machine itself is nicely dinky and heavy enough to make it reassuringly stable on a flat surface.  It reminded me of a printing press with its rollers and handle.   As others have said, handle turning is fun, I got Damian and Lula to have a turn too.  I used some less precious fabrics to test out my first die, Drunkard's Path just to get a feel for how the Go! and the die worked.  You do really need to push the sandwich of die/fabric/cutting mat quite hard to engage with the rollers but little effort is needed for the handle turning.   I chose Drunkards Path as this was a pattern I could never attempt without the Go!  My hands are just not up to a lot of scissor work, they hurt way too much after lots of scissor use, plus I can never cut  consistently or accurately enough on a shape like this.  If you want to try this for yourself there are free templates here.   I am making a mini sofa throw to cover the seating area of my couch.   However with any project, I start with a fabric pull!    

I am going for a scrappy but co-ordinated mix and an easy way to do this is to use some fabrics from a patterns.  I then look for other prints in my stash in similar colours- a bit of vintage, a bit of modern, it is the colours that count, to create a scrappy more relaxed mix of fabrics.  The colours are for the circles and the neutrals are for the outer shapes.  I also wanted a mix of neutrals, some patterned, some cream, some linen- you get the idea.   I haven't seen many scrappy accuquilt projects so I thought this would be a good test.  With this die, I needed to do some planning.   I couldn't cut the background shapes and the circle shapes at the same time using this mix of colours, so I used a template of each shape, you can see it below in green flowery fabric, but you could also run a piece of paper through to make a template.  I used the templates to roughly cut fabrics for the circles ready to cut.

As long as the fabric covered the die, I got great results even when it was only covering by 1/8 inch.  I lined up the grain of the fabric with the straight edge of the die and my results were perfect.  When you stack a pile of scraps you need to check they fully cover the die and by gently  pressing the fabric I found you could feel the ridges of the edges of the die- you need a few layers of fabric for this and I must stress to press gently as the dies are super sharp!  I did 6 layers of quilting cotton weight with no problems.  When I used a linen mix I reduced that to 5 layers.

So with a little prep and rough cutting I got 10-12 inner circle pieces at a time with tiny amounts of wastage, less than if I had cut with scissors.  The accuracy is what really impressed me and the notches- I could never have cut those and they are incredibly helpful when joining the pieces!

For the L shapes I found I either had to rough cut scraps into L shapes- using the green templates again- and cut 6 shapes at a time...

Or I doubled up and cut rough cut a T shape.  A 10" layer cake square was good for this- I got 2 folded T pieces and 2 L pieces from one 10" square.   This is a pile of 6 layers of Kona cotton waiting to be cut,

and this is 100% lightweight linen stacked up to be rollered through.  This fabric is a nightmare to cut with scissors or a rotary cutter.  It slips and slides under grippy rulers and is generally badly behaved so has been neglected for the last year.  I really was amazed to see how the Go!  cut this...

these shapes remind me of knickers- rather plain, spartan linen pants!

They are so accurate! I also found with cotton or linen fabrics that I only ever had 1 in 6 of the cuts with a little uncut thread of the fabric to snip.  I was so happy to finally use this linen and to see it cut so neatly.

In an ideal world all my projects would be planned neatly and arranged like this! 

The plan is to make a quilt 3 blocks by 7- each block is 7 inches finished. Twenty one blocks in all and I am just over half way.  It will be a quilt runner for my sofa to lie over the seating bit for cats, dog and 3 people to sit on and be easily slung in the wash.

My adventures will continue as I work my way through the dies- I have the strip cutter and the value die so there is a lot to play with.  I'll report back as I go along.  I am doing a lot of house sewing at the moment, pillows/cushions, throws, curtains etc so I'll see what projects I come up with.  It is a costly item but it does yield amazing results and it really saves on the arm strain.  It would be a great buy for a group of sewers to share- I know guilds are not so prevalent in the UK but sewing groups and  meetings are growing at the moment and with a few people chipping in you could then get a great variety of dies too.   In the meantime, 22 patterns are completely free and can easily be adapted to other cutting methods.  I had a good look through and found a lot of block ideas in there as well as quilt projects. Click here or on the pic below to sign up for free pattern downloads.

One lucky person will get to win a Baby GO! soon plus 3 dies- I will post more but you know a Go!  giveaway is a-coming...