GO! Update

The jury is in!

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I’m an honest and straightforward kinda gal.  Yes, I joke around a bit and try to make for some interesting reading but there are times when I do take things seriously too…really!

A couple of days ago I wrote about finally getting up the nerve to play with my new GO! machine.  If you missed it and would like to read about it, just click HERE.  

I am a creature of habit, especially when I find a comfort zone with something.  So having an assistant in the form of a machine to help me do something that I was already comfortable with doing manually was something that I was a little apprehensive about. I’m referring to hst’s…or half square triangles.

Being a self-taught quilter, virtually all that I have learned has been through trial and error…and mostly error.  *wink*  But because I love what I do, I persist.

I promised a thorough and accurate report on the GO! cutter without any sugar coating.  Well here it is because the jury is in and a picture is worth a thousand words!

The whole truth and nothing but the truth…

The first couple of hst’s that I pieced together were a bit off and not up to my standards at all.  Yes, I’m anal…to the point where I drive myself crazy at times.  But, I’m also as persistent and tenacious as a bull dog and I hate to admit to defeat.

I put everything away for a couple of days because of other commitments and I went back at it again last night.  The same thing happened and I was not a happy camper.  Here was this bright and shiny new machine that promised to make all our cutting lives just a little bit easier and it wasn’t working…at least not to my stringent specifications.  Dang!  All that work and all that fabric (even though I used scraps), not to mention the trepidation and anxiety of using a new machine…all gone to waste.  *sigh*

Sew…I sat back and regrouped.  Something was not right.  How could hst’s that match up perfectly after cutting them using the GO! not come out just as perfectly after sewing them? 

LIGHT BULB MOMENT!

It can’t be the machine because all the pieces were IDENTICAL in size after using the GO! cutter.  It had to be something to do with the OPERATOR!  

Who?  Moi???  Horrors!

Well, duh!

In the first paragraph I mentioned that I am a self taught quilter.  It took me a while to get the hang of piecing manually cut hst’s but once I figured out how to place them together and exactly where to place my needle when starting to sew, everything after that was tickety-poo.  Perfect hst’s “almost” 100% of the time.

“Sew what is different and what am I doing differently?” I asked myself.

LIGHT BULB MOMENT #2!

DOG EARS!  No dog ears!  That was the only difference.

When cutting hst’s using a rotary cutter and after piecing them together, there are always dog ears to be cut off.  With the GO! cutter, the dog ears are eliminated, ultimately saving us that sometimes annoying step.  What I was attempting to do was to line up the GO! hst’s in the same manner as the “traditional” hsts’s…which is okay…but it was where I was placing my needle where I went wrong.  (Insert thwak on the forehead with the palm of my hand).

Once I figured that out…well now I know what the person meant who coined the phrase, “easy as pie”.

How cool is that?

I’m thrilled to bits with how this little pinwheel doll’s quilt turned out.  I hope to set aside some time today to finish it.  It measures 16” x 16” and I plan to machine quilt it, just to save some time.  After all, there are other shapes that came with this die that I have to play with!

Verdict…because after all, the jury is in.

Do I like the GO! cutter?  Yes.

Will I use it again?  Absolutely!

Would I recommend it?  Most definitely.

Will I be giving away a GO! cutter soon?  Yessiree!

So stay tuned…and in the interim..

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥