Accuquilt Go - Rag Square Die

Take a good look at this Go cutter die, it has genius written all over it.  The 8 1/2" Rag Square die pre cuts the fringes for you ( my least favorite part) but even though this is brilliant I was sceptical.  My main concern was would the fringes drive me nuts when piecing the block together?? I'll answer that in a minute, first I want to show you all the steps to make a rag quilt using the Go cutter.

The first thing I did was cut my flannel into 9 1/2" strips. I bought 2 metres of each fabric and cut it all to make a baby quilt.

Next I folded one strip in half to make 4 layers of flannel and placed it on the die. Then I placed the cutting mat on top and then tried to roll it through the cutter....nope...way to thick!!

So I just unfolded it and used 2 layers, that worked fine.  Here is the finished cut after removing the extra fabric and you can see the fringes.

The instructions with the die said you can cut the batting squares for this project with the 6 1/2" square die. So I gave that a try thinking it would make a big mess and the batting would stick in the die blade or mat (you know like the mess batting leaves on your cutting mat when you trim a quilt when it is done).  Well to my surprise no mess.  Not even a piece of lint was on the die block.

Once all the batting squares were cut I quilted the 30 quilt sandwiches with just an X.

Now to answer the question did the fringes get in the way when sewing the blocks.  Not really but it did make it tricky to match up your seams when stitching the rows together.  But this is a rag quilt and I was going to just let that go.  After all I didn't have to do any clipping and that was wonderful!!

I only found a few fringes sticking out on the backside that had flipped and got caught in the stitching as I sewed the rows together.

Here it is not washed yet.

So if you like to make rag quilts this is definately a great die to purchase if you have an Accuquilt Go.