Sew Magnetic

 

I just received a new tool from Sew Tites, it's part of their new Sew Magnetic products, a rotating cutting mat. It's definitely pretty pricey, but they had a promo of BOGO, so friend Jaye and I went in on two of them, cutting the price in half.

It's a really great size for a lot of blocks and also for fussy cutting smaller pieces. I like the grey and white, it's a nice medium grey which will be great contrast for most fabrics. The cutting lines and markings are very clear..

You use it with these Booster Magnets to hold the fabric or the ruler. They also sell magnetic rulers that work with the mat, the magnets are built into the acrylic ruler.  I wonder if the other SewTites magnets that  I have would work, I'll have to try that out.

I tried it out with the fussy cutting templates from Jaybird Quilts and it really helped keep it stable. You still need to put a finger or two on it as well, but it really helps stabilize things. As my hands start to get more arthritis, I can see how useful this system will be when I need more assistance to cut safely and correctly. The mat rotates really smoothly and it's not too noisy like some of the other rotating mats are, I appreciated that a lot.

What a great product this is! I love being able to spin it around instead of rearranging the fabric and ruler for each cut. That is one of the main reasons I go wrong on cutting things with templates especially. I would definitely recommend getting one of these if you do a lot of fussy cutting, or block trimming in your quilting. Not having to grip the ruler so tightly made it so much easier on my hands and fingers, which has been a problem for me lately. I was able to concentrate on being safe with the rotary cutter, and ended up being a lot more accurate. 

I'm also considering investing in the large mat and big ruler (the non-rotating version) as well because this system really worked well for me.