Posted on by Marjorie Busby

Cut & Flip vs Cut & Shift Methods

If these terms aren’t familiar, you will find them in AccuQuilt’s Fabric Reference Chart describing cutting techniques for the Angles Companion Qubes. In the Angles Qube there are shapes that require one or the other of these methods. One is the Triangle in a Square shape which uses the Cut & Flip™ method and the Kite and Trapezoid shapes that use the Cut & Shift™ method. There’s also a great blog post on the AccuQuilt website that demonstrates these cutting methods.

For the Connector block in the Jan-Feb 2022 Qube QAL we are using the trapezoid shape which uses the Cut & Shift™ method. This is an image I created for the placement on the fabric strip. The trapezoid is not a directional shape so you can cut either from the right or wrong side of the fabric. However, for the dies like the Trapezoid or Kite that have only one shape on them, you will waste a lot of fabric if you fanfold on the die. The best way to do it if you have a lot of trapezoids to cut is to layer precut fabric strips and cut 2-3 at a time. This is the diagram that I created so that you can see how you cut a trapezoid, shift the fabric and cut the next one. You will see that on the end I flipped the fabric to get one extra trapezoid.

Another tip is that if you have questions about cutting, always cut paper to see how the die works before cutting into fabric. If you can do it with paper, then go ahead and use fabric.

5 Replies to “Cut & Flip vs Cut & Shift Methods”

  1. There’s a huge amount of info packaged with the dies. That’s where I found that cutting tip for this dies as well. And like you, I found the last cut left room for another cut, just rotated. The little triangles between the cuts can be recut into small HSTs.

    1. Hi Barb, The booklets that come with the dies are very helpful and have this same information in them. I have never watched the CDs because I gave up CDs in the computer years ago, but I’m sure they are helpful too.

Comments are closed.