On Ringo Lake – Week 5 with Brenda & AccuQuilt!

A belated Merry Christmas to you all!  Did you find much time to sew over the holiday weekend?  I had a bit of time before work Saturday morning to get all my cutting done.  It really went really fast thanks to my Accuquilt cutter again.  When I began this project, I wanted to use the different methods that Bonnie Hunter shows and then determine which worked best for me.  The reality of the situation is that I have a limited amount of time and in order to stay up to date, I need to work with the fastest and most accurate method and that means using the Accuquilt system.

I decided to time the whole cutting process to give you an idea how much valuable time is saved.  The first step is to rotary cut the fabric into pieces that are a half inch larger than area that the die will be cutting.  For me that took 10 minutes to cut out the brown pieces and 14 minutes to cut out the creams.  You don’t have to worry about having a clean edge since these are rough cuts so I usually will cut 2-3 at a time.

After the rough cut, I then fan folded the pieces onto the die.  With woven fabrics you can cut up to 6 layers of fabric accurately with Accuquilt.  Again, you can have your fabrics stacked together as you fan fold it over the die.  Just make sure you are only cutting a maximum of 6 layers at a time.

The die I was using cut 4 triangles at once which meant that with 6 layers of fabric, I could cut 24 triangles at a time.  I made sure I had the lengthwise grain perpendicular to the rollers as it fed into the cutter.

After the die went through the cutter, I slid the mat off and was left with all of these beautiful and accurate triangles.  Then it was a matter of stacking them up so they are ready to move next to my sewing machine.  The cutting with the Accuquilt cutter took 13 minutes for the brown triangles and about 30 for the cream.  I would be struggling to keep up with this project if I was cutting these units individually. With the Accuquilt, the cutting took just over an hour and was easy on my body as well.  I have noticed that if I do a lot of rotary cutting, I will get some pain in my elbow and wrist.  This isn’t an issue with my Accuquilt cutter.  It also saves all of the time cutting off those pesky dog ears after sewing.

If you have any questions about how to use the Accuquilt system for the On Ringo Lake Mystery quilt or any other project, I invite you to stop into the shop for us to show you how to use it to increase your speed and accuracy. 

I got about a quarter of the units sewn and then took some time on Christmas Eve to finish making the dress that I had started on my Bernina 460 Overlocker.  I had to attach the neckband and hem the dress which I finished in time to wear to the 4:00 service! Happy sewing my friends!

I’m linking up with Bonnie at Quiltville! Head over to check out how everybody’s doing!

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