Tumbling Along: An Introduction to the 3½" Tumbler

Let’s Get Started

You’ll notice on the Tumbler shapes that the corners are dog-eared for you. This enables you to sew the shapes together easily and quickly with no trimming necessary. It’s easy to pin and sew two tumbler shapes together in just a few seconds. Chain piece as many as you can and then sew them quickly into rows which makes for a relaxing cutting and sewing experience that yields a very cute finished project.

It’s easy to piece together a quick table runner or placemat set for a gift with the 3½" Tumbler die. You will be loved by the person who is lucky enough to receive that gift. This image shows you an easy placemat designed in EQ7 where you can cut out pieces using the 3½" Tumbler and citrus fruit fabrics.

This makes for a cheery placemat set to cheer up your table during the winter months. Leave the edges “zig-zaggy” on your tumbler projects for a unique look, or trim the side edges and add a border. The binding can be more time consuming on the option where you leave a “zig-zaggy” edge. If you leave the side edges uncut, be sure to truly cut on the bias to keep the sharpness of the edges intact.

Let’s take a minute and talk about the fabric-saving capabilities of the GO! Fabric Cutters. For minimal fabric waste, pay particular attention to how you lay the fabric on the die. Simply lay the fabric right over the edges of the blades. It’s not necessary to cover the entire die board. In addition, this die does allow you to better utilize scraps. You can easily save all your usable scraps and then cut them up with other dies. Keep them in labeled bags of various sizes and shapes for scrappy projects.

In truth, since receiving the AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter, none of my fabric goes to waste. In the past, there may have been small pieces of fabric which are four inches or less that would be useless otherwise. Now you can cut them into small squares and half-square triangles and use them in future projects. AccuQuilt offers a wonderful Fabric Reference Chart on their website that tells you the size to cut your pieces of fabric to get the most efficient use out of them on your dies with the least possible waste. It makes it easy to see how many shapes you can cut with one yard of fabric.

Once you begin using your GO! cutter, you become a really good judge of how to best use your fabric. I have much less fabric waste now than I had when using only the rotary cutter or tracing templates!

A friend of mine designed this quilt in EQ. It makes for a fun, easy project utilizing the 3½" Tumbler die. This design is called “Bow Ties” and if you look closely, you can see the bow ties as well as a secondary pattern pop out. In addition, you can even see 3-D boxes in the design.