Actually they are cutting with a rotary cutter and rulers.
My question is about the directions where they have people cut every little square out individually, when the pattern lends itself to sewing long strips together, and then cutting across the strips to yeild a nice collection of already sewn-together row of small squares or rectangles.
I just browsed through a cute book at the library -- DAre to be Square. The patterns lend themselves very admirably to strip piecing, but again, the author gives directions for cutting each block individually and sewing together individual blocks. Made me shudder (I say this without snarkiness-- just many years of quilting experience and self knowledge about a closet full of UFOs).
RST