AccuQuilt's Go Cutter at work...

I am the lucky new owner of AccuQuilt's Go! fabric cutter. It uses an ingenious design developed by the president of the company, who is also an engineer, to accurately cut your fabric in shapes determined by the dies you use in the machine. It is not electrical...you just turn a crank to run fabric through the machine. You can cut multiple layers at once too.

Here's a link to learn more about it.

I plan on making several service quilts over Christmas and will be putting the Go! to hard use then. But in the meantime I put it to the test to try cutting some 1 1/2" velvet strips with it. Velvet as we know is incorrigibly badly behaved in general. I wrote about how to tame this animal for CQMagOnline here. But velvet bias tape? That was way beyond me...

Until I put my Go! to work, teamed up with its new best friend in my sewing room, Simplicity's electric Bias Tape Maker. The results just thrilled me......

A strip of silk/rayon velvet awaits its transformation, from a longish scrap...

...to these perfect strips! How cool is that?
I cut some cotton velveteen too, and then ran both fabric strips through the bias tape maker.

This picture shows me pulling a strip of velveteen through the folding tip, past that silver heating element. While the machine is actually running, the heating element has a safety case that snaps into place so you can't burn your fingers. A little electric motor movers the fabric through...but with velveteen and velvet both, I tugged it as well because it is so thick. This worked fine.

And would you look at that? The velvet is below, the velveteen above. There is no way on God's green earth I could have gotten such straight bias tape (without squished edges) out of that velvet with a rotary cutter, ruler, and iron.

So, what was I going to do with this?
A little project for a friend that is doubling as a warm up for my next quilt, after Bars and Stripes is done. If I can wait that long. I am loving these fabrics!!!

This is 18" X 18" and it is going to be a pillow. I love the velvet with the flannel and wool...and you know it is impossible for me not to include flowers somewhere, somehow...