How to Cut Fabric Using a Rotary Cutter

Cutting fabric can be scary, but with these simple tips, you'll be just fine...promise :) Just grab your rotary cutter, ruler, and rotary mat, and we'll get started!

A little note about rotary cutting supplies. First of all, we highly recommend that you purchase the gypsy gripper which suctions to your ruler and provides a handle for easy cutting.  This makes cutting safer and you can apply pressure more easily.

Also, another thing to consider is where to place your rotary mat while cutting. We don't have a table and so we prefer cutting on the ground.  We place a hard piece of wood under our mats so that the surface is stable.  The important thing to remember is to ALWAYS cut on a flat, hard surface.

We learned the hard way that you ALWAYS use your rotary mat on a hard surface...not carpet ;) This is just one of many holes in our well loved mats.

As far as the actual rotary cutter goes, we have a Fiskars brand that works great. Make sure to change your blade out when it gets dull. A fresh blade always gives a nicer cut. 

And lastly, remember to put your safety protector on your blade to avoid accidents. We know all about those :)

Now, let's begin cutting! The picture above shows fabric that just came from the fabric store.  Nothing is matched up yet, that is our next step.

In order to get a nice cut across the grain of fabric, line up your selvages.  If you just thought to yourself "what's a selvage?" just smile and nod. Oh, or we can tell you :) The selvage is the edge of the fabric, opposite of the grain, that it tightly woven to reduce fraying. Usually the selvages can be determined by a white band of words on the edge, as seen above. 

After lining up your selvages, your edge running along the grain of the fabric will probably be uneven. That's okay...we'll fix that in a minute :)

Line up the folded edge of your fabric with a line on your rotary mat, as shown above. This will ensure that your fabric is cut straight.

Grab your rotary ruler and line up the edge of the ruler as close as you can to the uneven edge of your fabric. Make sure to line up the lines of your ruler with the lines on your mat...this way you will cut at a 90 degree angle.

Apply pressure on your ruler with your left hand, and with your right hand, cut the fabric.  Obviously if you are left handed, you will want to use the opposite hands. Apply enough pressure to go through all the layers, but don't press so hard your hand hurts. We are little cheaters and like to cut through a lot of layers at a time. Our record? Hmm...too many layers to count. Do as we say and not as we do and cut through no more than about 5 layers of fabric at a time.

Tada! Your fabric should now be squared up!

For making strips, count the number of inches on your mat for what size of strip you need. (We are cutting a 5" strip.) Then line the edge of your ruler with your selected line on your mat. You may also use the inch marks on your ruler for cutting strips that are smaller than the width of your ruler.

Thanks for quilting with us today! Hope this helps :)