My brother and his family gave me the 8 1/2" rag die for Christmas (we celebrate it early). I am totally in love with it. I got great shoes from llbean too but this die is just awesome!!! I made myself one quilt before - a rag quilt and swore I would never do one again - it killed my arthritis and took me a week to rag.
It took me minutes to cut two crib size quilts this morning with the die. I cut squares 9 1/2" and the die is 8 1/2". I took pics so people can see the "wastage"
This is a 9 1/2 square:
This is the square on the cutter:
