Scraplady

I have Olfa and June Tailor. I actually use the June Tailor mat the most. It is a harder surface and I don't find myself pressing as hard somehow. But I am partial to blue fabric, so often break out the Olfa just so I can see what I'm doing.

schoolteacher

codyormoe...most anxious to hear how you like the Alvin. I too have done some research and liked the thickness as compared to the others. I haven't ordered one yet but it looks promising. Keep me posted.

zipit

I won one of their small ones at one of my guilds. I bought the larger on recently at the OKC Quilt Show. It seems to be a very nice mat. You do need to make sure that your blade rotates freely for best results.

Lisa_wanna_b_quilter

Make sure the marking lines extend above and below the top and bottom lines. On my biggest mat they don't. If you have a piece of fabric that goes top to bottom, it's hard to line up a ruler.

Weezy Rider

The Big Mat -

That's the white mat I have. I like it since I can SEE most fabrics. I do miss the other markings on the lines. Olfa has ticks for 1/2, 1/4". Joanne here does sell Olfa. Are they the same quality as a quilt store? I read that some companies sell decent but not top of the line products to places like Joanne. This gives Joanne the ability to give a better price.

I've been using the older Olfa mats to cut mat board for mounting photos. Exacto and cork backed rulers. They've taken the punishment so far.

BTW - most of those cork back rulers are metal. However, when cutting paper for a class, I noticed a dip in the cut.
The ruler wasn't straight!. If you keep running into the edges of your quilt rulers with a cutter, they might get off in spots. It would also be possible for a ruler that isn't quite straight to get by quality control.

Weezy Rider

@quilttiger

How often do you use the scraper on that Big Mat? I've got to turn my mat around. I keep forgetting.

Weezy Rider

Anyone use one of these?
http://www.quiltersrule.com/mats/sf-mats.html

I'm curious. I've dealt with Quilters rule before and they have been reliable.

codyormoe

I never got a chance to even open the package until about 5 minutes ago and now I'm just too tired to do anything but stare at it and smile. I will come back when I get to actually use it.

117becca

I have a fiskars one (I think that's the name) It's the other one JoAnn's sells....But it's yellow and I agree - I can see better on it and why I like it the best.

codyormoe

I finally got some time to try out my new Alvin mat and I LOVE it. It's heavy and THICK and so sturdy feeling, yet still flexible. I spent hours this weekend cutting on it, and not just with my rotary blade, I used a utility knife to cut out letters and you can't tell I even used the mat yet. The grid markings are a little tricky(they go edge to edge but also from the middle to each side, hard to explain), but I think once I get used to them they'll be very handy. It's black on once side and green on the other, so no matter what color fabric you're working with there's a contrasting background to cut on.

Overall, I'm thrilled with the mat so far, obviously I can't say anything about it's longevity yet, but I hope I can in the future.