Playing with my Go!...FINALLY!! Picture heavy

Okay..finally got to play with my Accuquilt Go! tonight. I decided to start off with hst's...of course! For the quilt I am planning on making, I need 566 hst's or 1132 halves. Since the Go! cuts out 4 at a time..and you can layer up to 6 layers, that means I should only have to make 48 passes through the Go! to get what I need. First..my practice ones. Here we go:

First, open up the Go! (how easy is this..just pull open!) and place on a steady, flat surface


The green thing with the grey foam on it is the die. You can't see it in a picture, and it can be hard to see in real life, but you can see the lines of where the cuts will be through the grey foam. Place my scraps over those. This is an area where paying attention will save you aggravation..and money. As long as you can see where the cuts will be, you can line up your fabric and have minimum waste.


Next you place a cutting board on top and you are ready to cut!


Now, you start cranking it through the roller. As a little extra note here..when it is all the way through to the other side and you have put new fabric on, you don't have to move it back to the left side..you just turn the handle the other way and it goes through back to the left! Nice!


Yay! All done! Can't wait to look under and see what I have!


Cool! With my two layers of fabric, I got 8 halves for my hst's!


Okay..now on to the real test. Like I said in the beginning..I need LOTS of hst's for this project and according to the Go! paperwork, it can handle up to 6 layers at a time. That's what I'm talking about!! I tried a couple widths of fabric and decided to use my precut 3 inch strips (they were overflowing!). Seemed like those would work the best with the least amount of waste. Checked my time and off I went. Approximately 53 minutes later, I had 1200 halves of my hst's, or 600 hst's cut out:



I did find it much harder than I expected turning the handle to get 6 layers through than I thought. I didn't realize it would be that much work. However, my arms and hands weren't killing me when I was done. If I had used the rotary cutter, my arms and hands would have been aching and tired from all that cutting!!

So, I would have to say, with my one test today, the Go! is a definite winner..if you are planning on cutting out a LOT of something. I don't think I would bother if I were only needing a few of any shape but it definitely worked wonderfully for this. In all honesty, I am not sure if 53 minutes is a good time or not. I can't imagine I could have done all this with a rotary cutter in that time, and this accurately, but I have never timed myself!! The bad news is that I didn't read my pattern well enough. I cut 1200 2" finished hst's and the pattern calls for 2 1/2" hst's! LOL Guess I will be using the Go! tomorrow to make a lot more hst's to make up the difference!! Fortunately the pattern will work with the smaller hst's...I will just need a lot more!