My Queen-Sized Quilt As you Go quilt that I made recently was probably the worst I have felt cutting fabric for a long time though.
It had multiple sizes of fabric pieces that I needed to cut 320 each of!! My hand was hurting by the end of it, I was bored and some of my cutting was less than precise.
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Note: This post was first published in 2021 but has been updated several times – do let me know if you see anything that is out of date!
How To Use The Accuquilt Go Big For Strip Binding
So being me instead of taking the cutting slowly, I powered through it all and then spent ages online googling fabric cutters so I’d never have to suffer like that again!
I essentially bought the fabric cutter starter set and I actually liked it so much that I also bought some more fabric-cutting dies for the machine from the AccuQuilt website and a few other places.
I also now have the AccuQuilt Go! Me Cutter (which is like the baby cutter) so I’ll talk about that a bit too.
Accuquilt Go! Cutter Review
I have signed up as an affiliate for Accuquilt which means that if you make a purchase from them through any of my links I will get paid a small commission for referring you to them but the cost stays the same for you.
Accuquilt often has great discounts on and I used an accuquilt discount code to get a lot of new dies at 30% off and a free Accuquilt Go! Me Cutter (see below for more on that – that’s the one that used to be called the Accuquilt baby cutter).
Before I go through what I like and don’t like about the AccuQuilt Go! I feel like I should quickly explain what it is and how it works if you’ve never heard of it before.
Go! Me® Fabric Cutter Starter Set
Essentially the ‘cutter’ folds open on to your table and you feed fabric-cutting dies through it and turn a lever to push them through and cut your fabric.
The aren’t actually any blades in the AccuQuiltGo! cutter itself though – the blades are in the cutting dies which are essentially boards with cutting blades and foam in them.
The dies have a foam side and the blades that actually cut the fabric are in there – so you won’t have cut fingers.
Accuquilt Go! Big Circle Fabric Cutting Die With Multiple Sizes For Quilting 699195554629
The dies come in a wide range of quilting shapes from classic half square triangles to various strip dies and geometric shapes too.
All you do is place fabric of any type on the foam side of your die making sure that it covers the marked outlines of the shape you want to cut
The blades are placed differently to cut different shapes and sizes so you need to purchase the dies for the shapes you want to cut.
Green Fairy Quilts: Accuquilt Go! Review
You can cut up to 6 layers of quilting cotton or batiks on any AccuQuilt die put you can also cut a wide variety of fabrics like denim, leather, flannel, wool, fleece, silk, satin, etc (but not 6 layers for the thicker fabrics!).
And in case you were wondering the 1/4″ seam allowance is built into all of the dies. So when you look at the label for different fabric cutting dies it will tell you the cut size and the finished size with that 1/4″ seam.
The AccuQuilt Go! & Go! Me Cutters operate with a hand crank but you don’t need any strength to use it, it turns easily.
Going Into The New Year With Accuquilt Go! Fabric Cutting System
So the idea is you will avoid the arm strain and sore hands that I got when I tried to cut that massive pattern without the cutter.
I believe the current AccuQuilt Go! Starter Set on the website includes the 8″ Cube Set, the 2.5″ Strip Cutter (which I have now bought separately as it didn’t come with mine) the die pick, the necessary cutting mats, the books, patterns and the DVD.
My Accuquilt Die Collection has grown since I first wrote this review – you can read more about my accuquilt dies here.
Accuquilt Go! Starry Path 9
I am just not great at cutting straight with a rotary cutter and that has a knock-on effect to how well my blocks come together.
Using the Go! Cutter means I get accurate cuts as well as built in registration points for shapes like clamshells and triangles.
Arguably if you are a confident cutter with a sharp rotary blade you might be able to cut strips and other big shapes faster and through more layers than the cutter, but for complicated shapes with lots of angles like hexagons, circles, applique shapes, etc this is definitely faster and I value it for that.
Accuquilt Go! Qube 12
I like that there are not only the dies for traditional quilt blocks but also for geometric shapes like triangles, circles, parallelogram, hexagons, etc.
This was one of the things I was interested in as previously it has been the tedium and difficulty of cutting out some of those sorts of shapes with acrylic dies that put me off making some of the quilts I would like to try.
You can buy different sizes of hexagon, circle, clamshell and traingle dies which are the sort of quilts on my bucket list for future projects.
Accuquilt Custom Sew Steady Extension Table Learning Library
The Mix & Match Cube blocks which come in different finished block sizes basically have different dies inside them for cutting half-square triangles, rectangle shapes, diamonds, parallelograms, a square die, etc.
So you can use different combinations of them to make all sorts of well-known traditional blocks or come up with your own modern block design.
The official AccuQuilt advice is that the GO! fabric cutter machine (and the Go! Me) can cut up to 6 layers of quilting cotton fabric and fewer of thicker fabrics like denim.
Accuquilt, A Division Of Tekbrands, Acquired By Private Equity Firm Wilsquare Capital
Some of the other fabric cutters I looked into could only cut one layer at a time which doesn’t feel like a time savings to me!
So much easier than the way I use to cut it before – which often ended up a bit off in places if my finger slipped too!
I find the cutter useful for my scraps – I can easily cut pieces of fabric even if they are oddly shaped into hexagons, circles for applique or any other size die cutter they can fit on.
Accuquilt Die Go! 55047 Quarter Square 4 Inch 699195550478 / Quilt In A Day / Accuquilt
I am not generally one for cutting all my scraps up into certain sizes but I do usually have a few quilts I am cutting for at a time and those are the sizes I make a habit of cutting my scraps into at any given time.
There are loads of free patterns on the website so you don’t have to pay extra to find a project to make with the dies and you have unlimited design options if you use your own imagination.
The regular price for Go! Cutters is $329 (though you can often use a discount code to get it for less as AccuQuilt have several sales throughout the year).
Book 50 Fast & Easy Quilt Patterns Using The Accuquilt Go
I paid £335 (GBP) (approx $460 US for my secondhand GO! Cutter with quite a number of extra dies included). So even secondhand it wasn’t cheap.
So it depends on how much of an issue cutting is for you – but for me, it was worth the extra cost to save me from backaches, sore hands, and wasting fabric because I cut it less than precisely using a rotary cutter or scissors.
This isn’t actually a con for me but it is worth keeping in mind that even though all the cutters come with a plastic carrying handle the GO! and GO! Big electric version are quite heavy.
Accuquilt Go! Fabric Cutter Review (2023)
So if you are looking to take your fabric cutter with you to quilting classes or quilting retreats or even just move it around a lot in your own home the smaller baby machine – the Go! Me – would probably be a better fit for you.
The Go! Me is 8.5 lbs and it can still handle a lot of the fabric dies especially the ones you would be using for smaller projects or for quilt blocks.
Lastly, when I purchased the big lot of dies from the AccuQuilt website they were having a promotion where if you bought so many you got the GO! Me Cutter free so this is what I got free:
Go! Outside The Box Pattern Book By Eleanor Burns
That same deal isn’t on all the time but if you sign up for updates above I will make sure to send you the latest AccuQuilt sales and discounts when I see them!
For anyone from outside the states who is wondering – yes I bought my additional dies from the US AccuQuilt website because it was cheaper than buying from distributors in the UK.
I use a service called USGoBuy to purchase goods in the USA and have them shipped to me for cheaper either when international shipping on US websites is too high or when they just don’t have an international shipping option.
Ready. Set. Go! Ultimate Fabric Cutting System
Obviously, the shipping time frames are going to be longer but it saved me money so I didn’t mind waiting and I will probably use this method again for future purchases.
I don’t personally have a Sizzix machine, but apparently, you can buy adapters that will allow you to use Accuquilt Dies on a large Sizzix machine.
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