I am a big fan of his and would not even begin to tell you why he does what he does. I do know that if you look at the back of the book, many of the quilts are really designed and made by others like Roberta Horton and her sister Mary Masuda. He does design quilts, I am totally in love with his designs and have a full drawer devoted to his fabrics. All of the quilt books that I have by him have templates also. I just never noticed specific instructions for rotary cutting, probably because I have so many older quilt books that I have to adjust to the way I cut and sew.