I'm a self taught quilter so I may very well have taught myself a bad habit. I like measuring and cutting from right to left and bottom to top (ie I place the lower right corner of fabric in the lower right corner of mat and slide my ruler to the left as I measure out to cut). I was OK with this until I bought a new cutting mat.

My Omnigrid (old mat) has horizontal markings that begin with 1" in the lower right corner and the vertical markings have both 1" in a small font and the large font is the reverse marking (24").

I bought a new mat recently to cover my entire board. It's not a self healing mat - it's the other type (made by Beba). Anyway, I didn't notice that mat is oriented to the left - both the vertical and horizontal markings for 1" are ONLY in the lower left corner. If I want to measure in both directions from the right I have to count backwards!! Wish I had noticed this when I bought it. If I flip it to the opposite side, the horizontal markings are left to right but the vertical markings are top to bottom. No where on the mat do the 1" markings meet at a corner.

So I wondered ... does anyone (other than lefties) cut from left to right? I looked at quite a few mats online just now and there seems to be as many right to left as there are left to right.

Argh ... I just went and marked my new mat with a magic marker to see if that will end my aggravation.

Right to left here! I'm right handed.

Most of the time it's just us Lefties that cut left to right, I have just learned to adapt like with everything else. Good luck. If you haven't purchased one yet the ergonomic rotary cutter for Lefties is worth the money. Mine is a Martelli brand but I think there are others available.

Umm, I've always been told not to use the mat to measure with, but I must confess I use mine at least to line it up and then use the ruler to cut. How about if you used a fine sharpie to write the correct numbers under the incorrect ones? Or maybe every other one rather then all?

It's interesting, I just bought a new mat and haven't used it much myself, I need to check and see how the numbers run, I bought an Alvin after I saw glowing raves, here I think.

I tend to cut right to left because it is easier for me as a right hander. I was reading through a begginers quilt book I had and it said to line fabric up and cut from left to right. I guess it then becomes a matter of preference.

I'm looking at your green mat again if you turn it so the large 23 is in the left lower corner and the large 123 are going from lower left corner up it would be perfect because above the large 23,22,21 etc. You have 1,2,3. That is a great mat. Then you can cut left to right and no backwards counting.

I don't use the numbers on my mat. I measure with my ruler. Lay fabric on mat straight cut on my left lay ruler on fabric line up horizontal line on ruler with bottom and top folds of fabric. Slide to my right until I have say 2 inches under ruler cut with right hand raise ruler. have 2 inch strip. Does this make sence to you?

Hi Sue, I only use the lines on the mats to help line up my fabric. I don't use the mat lines to cut by. I use my rulers to measure and cut the fabric. I don't cut near the lines on the mat. I even sometimes angle my fabric for cutting if cutting small sections so as to not continually be cutting on the straight lines of the mat.

Pam M

I can honestly say I cut both ways, mostly it depends which side of my cutting table is cleared off :) :) I ALWAYS count twice so I can cut once, and it doesn't matter to me about the numbers.

Same here!