Margo wrote:
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing Margo. I was very suprised to learn that the rotary cutter was invented for quilting and then found its way to other uses.

I don't usually share my rotary cutter, but others did use it last Friday and our guild's biennial charity sew-in. I do not cut over pins or paper, but sometimes mistakenly cut into my plastic rulers. I will use my spent dull blades to cut paper. Until now, I have only used the expensive blades and don't think they last long enough to justify the high cost.

For interesting info about rotary blades check here: http://www.lpsharp.com/index.html and http://www.lpsharp.com/2.html

For info about having your blades exchanged for professionally refurbished (sharpened) blades check here: http://www.lpsharp.com/3.html

I'll watch for both of those but I'm particularly anxious to try out the carpet cutters, the price of rotary blades can be awful and a fresh blade is sooooooo helpful!

WooHoo Nancy! Thanks for the advice.

Good job being alert and willing to think outside of the box Nancy!

Today, I was in the Sherwin Williams paint store to buy paint for my bedroom and I noticed a roll of brown masking paper named "Easy-Mask" which was 9" x 180' at $2.79 per roll. It looked like the proper light weight, similar to newsprint, to use for paper-piecing. For $2.79, I thought that I'd give it a try since I'm needing to make a bunch of paper piecing templates for a current project. Well, it worked great! I just cut off 8.5 inch lengths and sent them through my inkjet printer for my 8" finished block templates. I didn't even change my settings for 8.5" x 11" letter size paper because I printed in Portrait only on the top 8.5" of the 9" long strip. So convenient and cheap!

By the way, the carpet cutter blades at Harbour Freight tools were on sale today at $1.79 for 2 blades. They fit the 45mm rotary cutters perfectly. This is way less expensive than the ones you get at the fabric store, even with your 50% off coupons. I'm no expert, but would think that you'd need a much sharper blade to cut through carpet than through fabric. However, I must admit that I haven't tried using the blades yet. If you want to get some, please note that these blades are not in the section of the store where all of the other blades are located. You may need to ask the sales clerk to direct you to the carpet cutter blades.