Originally Posted by dhanke

I don't have a light box for tracing patterns etc., but I do have a plexiglass extension table on legs that came with my machine. I flip my ott-lite on it's back and slide it under the extension table, works perfectly.
My second tip is about rotary cutting multiple strips from a single piece of fabric. For example, if I need six strips 2" wide, I first cut a 12" strip with my square ruler, then I slide it over to the 10" mark, cut again, slide it to 8", cut again and so on until I have all 6 strips. It's alot faster and more accurate. If I'm working with a strip width that's not so easy to mentally calculate, such as 1 3/4 inches, I use a calculator to determine the maximum width I can use for the first cut, in the case of a 12 inch ruler it would 10.5 inches. Then I use the calulator to subtract 1 3/4 inches for the second cut and move the ruler to the 8 3/4 inch mark. I continue to use the calculator for each cut because I don't trust myself to figure it correctly in my pea brain!
Probably sounds complicated, but it really saves time when cutting lots of strips.