Would not trade my Go for all the tea in China. Love, love, love it. I am not an accurate cutter so this has saved me many times.

Not worth it for me either. I've had it since shortly after it came out and I've only used it a few times for cutting out shapes for a wall-hanging. The one really good use we had for it was cutting out paper butterflies to be used in our son's wedding this past Saturday. Cutting out 125 by hand would have been really difficult.

I have the go and like the few dies I have, but find the cost of the dies makes it hard to buy many. Of course I am on a fixed income and retired, so if you can afford them it's great. If not it's a waste.

My vision is not the best for accuracy so I use the dies and they save time, money, stress. Have the electric Go now and keep it set up ready to go at all times.

I bought my ACQ cutter back in 2009 and have not regretted it at all. Strip dies do a lot more than cutting just strips. Turn the strips crosswise and you can cut perfect squares, for example. There are helpful YouTube and video tutorials online. I now have osteoarthritis in both my hands (worse on the right hand) and recently sold the ACQ cutter and ordered the electric version (Go BIG). It is supposed to arrive by tonight. Dies can be purchased for less...check Joann Fabrics online for their periodic deals....once they had some on sale at 50% off. Hope it happens again for others. EBay and Amazon can have some good prices, too. I have been to a few quilt vendor shows where dies are sometimes discounted by vendors.

I have the GO Big Electric and it is absolutely worth it.

I was just gifted with a CriCut, and plan to use it first to cut out heavy paper hexes for a hand made quilt I want to do, but I have no idea what else I can do with it....

I love my Go!, including the strip cutters. As Paper Princess wrote (post #5), the accuracy is the main reason. But last year I suffered a badly broken right arm right at the top of the humerus and had to have surgery. Since then it has been difficult for me to cut strips because of the stretching to cut WOF, something that had never bothered me before. I bless the strip cutters now!

PaperPrincess and nanacc this is exactly the reason I have started hinting to my DH that I sure would like to have an electric cutter for my bday and Christmas (they are 5 days apart). The accuracy is what I would like to have.

I have it and love it. Made such a difference in getting everything cut perfect. Would never have made Grandmothers flower garden without it. Have about 10 dies and would love to have more. Worth every dime.

I agree with qiltin-nannie. I usually use my June Taylor to cut strips. I do like the Go for applique shapes though. I would not buy the Go if I had it to do over again, It is hard for me to turn the crank . . . getting harder the older I get and the more my arthritis bothers me. If I had waited and bought the electric Big Go I would probably love it. I am looking at an electric cutter that I can scan applique shapes and send to the cutter via computer.

Thank you for all the responses.

I love my go and use it all the time...

DH replaced the roller (needle bearings) in mine and now the Go cranks like butter. My three year old grandson loves to turn it for me. Each roller has a bearing on each end. It took him about an hour, most of that time was spent finding his snap ring pliers. LOL

I HAD a Go!.[ATTACH=CONFIG]532767[/ATTACH]

Look who's got it now.

Beautiful cat.

I have a Studio and enjoy it so much, bought the GO! Baby to use in classes and retreats. But if you scroll back thru this thread, you're likely to discover, those who enjoy their cutters the most, are those who use their cutters more for piecing than for appliqués. If you're a piecer, IMHO, it's unfair to dismiss a die cutter based solely on the experience using a company's smallest, most basic model.

Yes, the dies are expensive . . .but for a die that will be used frequently, it's worth it. If you're only using applique, the Scan N Cut is worth it because, as you point out, it will cut any shape. The downside, however, is it cuts one layer of fabric at a time . . .not at all practical if piecing a quilt. Therefore, I wouldn't consider a scan n cut a substitute for a die cutter.

I agree completely with this post....I do both piecing and applique and use my GO whenever possible for both......as far as "hard to crank". Use it a few times and it smoothes out and Is fine. But, don't fill with 6 layers of fabric! I layer to 4 and it's smooth...at 6 it is tougher and I really don't want to push it.....

I agree with Robin. I think if I appliqued a lot I would probably get the scan and cut or something similar, but with all the geometric dies I have and use a lot the Studio is the one I use and it cuts and saves my back and arms and hands. I get a lot cut with only a little work. It is awesome to see the stacks pile up and fast.

The dies for applique are so expensive for the use most people would get out of them, I didn't buy any of those. I knew I would not use them at all. I think the expense is a concern on any of them, but I bought mine on sale and when I had the money to do it starting with the ones I wanted to use the most which was the 2" one. I think they are well worth it. I just purchased the last sale the 2 1/2 inch Square and some little triangles.

I agree, but I have the Silhouette. I often sketch my own appliques rather than buy a die or use clip-art. I can get things into the Silhouette from my drawing program. To add to that, Masterworks does have the ability to program machine applique. I can take the same drawing and digitize it.

No use buying a die cut machine if you can't/won't buy the dies to use with it.

I cut up to 8 layers... mine cuts better when it's got lots of layers loaded. Not as well when it only has 2 layers in it.

I have the Fiskars Fuze die cutter (I think that's what it's called) and I think is the right tool for some jobs but not all.

I can make really accurate cuts with rulers and my rotary blade. I have purchased Accuquilt dies that turned out to be wonky (a "square" that's 1/8th inch wider on one side, argh!) so I kind of squint suspiciously at the dies now.

For straight line cuts - strips, squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons...I just use my rulers. It's not much difference in speed on average (faster for strips, a bit slower for hexagons), accuracy is just fine, waste is a lot less, and I don't have to lug the die machine out or store a bunch of dies.

But for curved cuts or raggy squares...die cutter all the way. Especially raggy blocks - I will NEVER snip another rag quilt by hand, good grief!

In 10 or 15 years when I start hitting my senior years I can see investing in something like the motorized Big cutter to spare my hands/wrists/arms some work - arthritis is unfortunately strong in my family and I will probably need something like that down the road. Unless, of course, I can just get my household robot to do it for me, LOL.