Accuquilt GO Bolt…
 

I havent seen anyone mention Accuquilt’s newest cutter here yet, so thought i would give my opinion.

I gave myself the new Accuquilt GO Bolt for Christmas and im really happy with it! I wore out two Accuquilt GO ME machines, and have an Accuquilt GO. They are all hand-crank machines and worked well. However, due to a hand injury a little over a year ago (fractured two of the small finger bones close to my wrist) the hand cranking was just getting too painful. The injury has been quite discouraging - to the point where i wondered if maybe my quilting days might be over. I told my husband that maybe i should consider selling all my stuff and just be done with it. He didnt think that was the best idea i ever had. We talked about it and I decided to wait a little on that decision. He asked me what i wanted for Christmas - maybe something that might help? I told him about the new BOLT cutter and he agreed since it was electric it might be worth trying.

So i ordered it and i really like it and it helps! I didnt want the GO BIG which is also electric because its BIG. I just dont have that much room in my Happy Place, plus the price tag didnt seem reasonable for somebody who wasnt even sure if she would continue quilting. That thought was killing me cuz i have been quilting for over 30 years and it brings me so much joy that not quilting would break my heart.

Anyway, the GO Bolt takes up a fraction of the footprint of the GO BIG. Its much more reasonable in price, and its lightweight enough that it doesnt hurt my hand to move or carry it! The dies i already have for the GO ME/GO all work in the BOLT.

Thats my opinion for what its worth!

I am very glad you get to keep quilting! The Go Bolt sounds like a keeper! Thank you for the review.

I have the Go Me and the bigger Go manual cutter. I use them more than my rotary cutter. So far no problem cranking the die through but If I ever had trouble turning the handle I will buy the electric one. I don't have the big dies for the Go Big so the Bolt will be my choice.

I think the mid-size electric was a brilliant idea and glad you enjoy it. I too fell into accuquilts thrall after long time wrist problems exerbated by a broken wrist a year and a half ago. I got the Go electric and am excited to use it every day, but had the bolt been available then that's what i would have gotten.
The only complaints I've seen are from people who are used to the Go electric which stays on until you turn it iff. the Bolt has auto shut-off which seems to irritate them like our auto-shut off irons do :)
Happy quilting.

I have the Studio II, the big heavy manual machine that's often seen in quilt shops. It isn't hard for me to turn the crank, and I have a place for it at the end of my long cutting table. It's much too heavy to move around. This works well for me, but I can understand that it wouldn't work well for someone with wrist or arm problems, or someone with limited space. I only bought strip dies for it. The dies are heavy too, and take up more space, but I'm happy with this setup.

All my dies are in half inch increments. The pattern for the next quilt I want to make is written for strips that are cut at 1.75", to finish at 1.25". I priced the strip die of that size - $270!!! - and decided it wasn't worth that much to me. (Boy, have prices gone up since I bought my machine.) But rather than cut all those strips with my rotary cutter, I plan to change the pattern to use 1.5" strips that finish at 1".

Hi, everybody! Thanks for the well wishes that my quilting journey might continue with a little help from the TOOLS available! I truly appreciate your positive affirmations on my behalf!

Regarding the auto-shut off on the Bolt - i was aware of that before i ordered it and quite honestly it doesnt bother me at all. Im just thankful to have a smaller electric option.

Like some others have mentioned, i do MOST of my cutting with the AQ. And i do resize many patterns so i can use the dies i already have. My quilting buddy and i do a lot of Bonnie Hunters patterns (but i dont do the mysteries) and i am accustomed to just looking at the pattern i like and seeing how i can make it from my 8” Qube. If you can use the Qube, then everything fits together no matter what the original pattern called for with finished block size. I do have some strip dies and the wedge die to make tree skirts. But other than that i dont have a lot of dies because so far i have what i need.

My quilting buddy and i get together as often as we can for a “cutting party” from our scraps. We both love scrap quilts and make sure to have plenty of precut squares, rectangles, etc. available for the next project. We have quite a collection of neutrals and colors making it really easy just to sit and sew whenever we get the opportunity! Once in a while we might need something that cant be die cut, but we are ok with that because we already did the bulk of major cutting by machine.

I remember when AQ first came out with machines and dies - i was like WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I EVER NEED THAT OR EVEN WANT IT??? I was wrong, lol!

I remember when AQ first came out with machines and dies - i was like WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I EVER NEED THAT OR EVEN WANT IT???

I pre ordered the Accuquilt Go before it was released. I knew as soon as I heard about it how great it would be for me. I brought it to the guild for a demo because i was so excited about it. Old biddy members turned up their noses at it. And the thought of having to buy mats and different dies was just absurd. One said boy they saw you coming! About a year later they SAID I could bring it to sewday so they could cut lots of fabric for donation quilts and save them from cutting all that fabric. I didn't show up. We moved not long afterwards and I found a new guild and many of the members had the Go and the guild bought dies to use for donation fabric cutting.

I don't have one- yet.

But I do remember when rotary cutting was "new" - and how some people resisted that idea!

When they first came out with the electric Accuquilt I started thinking about it because I loved my crank one so well. I could see where it could become diffcult to use the crank one. Several years ago I was at my favorite quilt shop up north and notice they were selling the dies for the Accuquilt at a good discount. I asked the owner what was going on and she was discontinuing carrying Accquilt because the company decided to keep certain popular dies only for sale on their web site. She asked me if would be interested a new Go Big. They weren't as expensive then as they are now and I got it 50% off plus all my Accuquilt supplies there are now alway 15% off because of buying the Go Big. Accuquilt backed off on it and she restocked and continues to sell them. I cutout five QOV's at once and only could do it because of the Accuquilt and my quilts are much more accurate and go together easier because of the accurate cutting.

I know it is the one tool I would replace the second it broke.