Originally Posted by jude by the sea

Hi everyone! I sort of have a delima and was wondering what others would do. About 4 years ago I went to a quilt show and purchased a large purple cutting mat and several rotary cutters. The other day I was so frustrated that some of my blocks were coming out a little smaller or larger but not much. So as I am starring at the cutting mat with my ruler laying on it I noticed that the inches didn't match up to the inches on my ruler! I then started checking the rulers inch to the mats inch and low and behold they didn't match as I traveled around the Mat checking for accuracy. No wonder I have had trouble with blocks being off! My delima is: should I contact the company who made the mat (which I won't mention the name on the board here cause I don't know if that's appropriate)! Or should I just let it go. I have taken really good care of the mat, always covered it and never let the sunshine hit it so I can't believe it's anything I did. I know it's four years old but I would never guess that such a large and expensive mat would skew! What would you all do? Let it go, as they say which I could but I worry about new quilters having the same issues! Plus now what good is mat? Yes I can use it as a straight line marker but in making blocks I can't trust the accuracy. I know I used all sides of the mat when I cut so maybe that's why my blocks weren't always exact. I asked a quilter about this and her answer was that she never uses the mat to cut her pieces. I was to embarrassed to ask how she cut her pieces but maybe there is something I should know about cutting pieces other than how I cut my pieces is by ruler and mat working together! Anyone have any input?