I cut a stip just a little bigger than the cutting lines on the die. One tip, if it doesn't already have the cut lines darkened, I took a sharpie and draw on the cutting lines so that its easier to see where your cutting lines are when placing your fabric on the die. Also, make sure you don't have the fabric cut on the bias, if laid down on the cutter the wrong way as the die is going thru the cutter it'll stretch the fabric and you'll end up with the wrong size of squares. I learned this the hard way. If you do rag quilts, I love the die for that, I would never do a rag quilt if I had to make all those slits by hand. Good luck. My daughter loves it, she doesn't make that many but they are always block quilts and after trying to cut the first quilt by hand years ago and all of her blocks were different sizes, she now only uses the Go and she also had to learn the hardway on how important laying the fabric on it the right way if very important.