My New Toy- Accuquilt Go! Baby

If you use one of those huge die cutters in the craft store you are probably using an Accucut die cutter.  Several years back, I bought their home use/portable cutter which was pretty much discontinued as soon as they launched it.  Finding compatible dies is just ridiculous.  So anyway, I was on the company website trying to find some specs or anything to try and make my own adapters when I learned of their new product line, the Accuquilt die cutters for quilters.  Now, they have a higher end version and also the consumer/home use/portable ones... and since I more or less got burned with their paper die cutter, I was hesitant to buy this, lest I get stuck with another box in the closet.

But, I started making I Spy quilts for the kids and I got a little carried away.  (I have nearly 300 hexagons cut already!)  All of these hexagons were fussy cut by hand using a rotary cutter and an acrylic template.  It's taken me the better part of a year to get through enough different materials to have the "inventory" to assemble a decent sized I Spy quilt. 

After doing the math, I decided that it would be worth the $130 or so for the Go! Baby machine and the equilateral triangle die to avoid cutting some 600 or so triangles.  Otherwise, all these toddlers in the family will be in college before I get the first top pieced together.  I guess by then I could claim these are vintage I Spy quilts, but I digress.  I was looking for a reason to buy this gadget and I had one, so I bought it, and it's COOOOOOOL!!!!!
 

Naturally, I had to get some of the other dies to go with this and a cutting mat, and a carrying case to keep everything together.  All in all, I spent about $300.  (Shhhh!  Don't tell my husband!)  But I cranked out all the darned triangles I needed for my first quilt in just about 10 minutes.  That's right!  I cranked out almost TWO HUNDRED equilateral triangles in TEN MINUTES!!  And it was so quiet I could do it during NAP TIME!!!!  How cool is THAT????? 

Now, if I could just sew the darned things together as fast as I can cut them...  (Boy, I bet anyone who quilts would be surprised to hear THAT!!)

So anyway, I am trying not to be all ADHD about my crafting so I actually finish projects, but this makes me want to cut up the rest of my scraps and make all sorts of things.  Pillow cases, wall hangings, zabuton cushions... This thing is COOL! 

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