Anyone who spends any amount of time sewing with me will hear this, and hear it constantly if you’re one of those people who leaves your rotary cutter open when you put it down.

If fact, last week, at my quilt guild’s lovely charity sewing day*, I got told by a member that I was being micro-managing because I was being a hawk about open blades.

Well, I am a hawk about open blades, ESPECIALLY in a group setting. This particular group had over a dozen people in it, and we were all wading through piles of scrap strips to make string blocks. Imagine what would have happened if an open blade was buried under the strips someone grabbed. Yep – there could have been an injury.

Getting hurt on your own turf, and through your own misfortune is one thing, but taking your bad habits to the quilt store is negligent, and let’s face it, somewhat arrogant: you are more than welcome to risk your own hands, but please don’t risk mine. I need both of my hands to be fully operational to run my business and enjoy my life. You have no idea which medical conditions your friends might have that can be compromised or exacerbated by a cut. And let’s face it, NO ONE has time for an inopportune injury, and I daresay the unexpected medical bills that would accompany it will give most of us a bad case of the sweats, if not kill off the next fun thing we’re saving for.

We obey plenty of laws for the common good, so adding a good blade closing habit to your skills shouldn’t be something to resist!

I’ve had several friends do battle with rotary cutters and lose big time. One friend recently gashed her palm while changing blades and was off work for the better part of a month over it. Another had to see a hand surgeon to re-attach a finger tendon that got sliced right through (did you know that those tendons can snap back up into your forearm?) Several friends have had stitches. Personally, I sliced the side of my finger off one night when I was working late (and tired) and because I was on blood thinners at the time, it took over an hour to get it to stop bleeding. And that finger is still skinnier along the side I sliced.

Rotary cutting is a major innovation for quilters, but these blades are dangerous and need to be respected.

I was fortunate to be taught by a great teacher who made sure that we learned to close the blade from the very first class. If you can’t get your head around closing the blade you MUST buy a cutter that will do it for you. There are good cutters out there that will close automatically when you release them:

Olfa makes this one – you squeeze the handle to uncover the blade and it retracts when you let go.

And Dritz makes this one – it’s pressure sensitive, so the guard goes back as you press down to cut (and FYI, if you dropped this on your foot the blade would probably come out and cut you – so you’d be better off learning to close your blade on one that can’t do that!)

SO CLOSE YOUR BLADE!

And for my tips on maintaining your rotary cutter, read this post Slicing, dicing… and oiling.

* More about this to come… I’ll be interviewing the amazing woman who runs our charity sewing it in the next couple of weeks.

Links are NOT affiliate!

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No, it’s not a cooking/recipe post! Heavens no… it’s a post about rotary cutters!

Did you know that oiling them can help them roll more smoothly? Yep. Just like oiling your sewing machine. And you can even use the same oil!

You’ve probably noticed that your rotary cutter can get a build up of gunk under the blade. Left alone, it can cause the blade to roll less smoothly. Why does that matter? I have one word for you… SAFETY. Anything that makes you lean harder into the blade increases your chances of an accident. So let’s look at how to oil your cutter…

First, take the cutter apart. I always do it on a flat surface, and I put the parts down in a line in the order I take them off:

Next up, clean the mess off the blade cover (the grey haze on the black below), and VERY CAREFULLY off the underside of the blade:

Add a single drop of machine oil on the blade cover (terrible picture… I was trying to take it one handed and not pour a quart of oil over everything… but you get the idea, right?)

Then put it back together! If you’re tired of keeping track of the spring washer and nut when you take the cutter apart, consider getting one of Olfa’s new cutters with a quick release on the blade:

Just pull back on the yellow tab and it releases the pin that holds the blade in. This is a nice update to the cutter… the handle shape fits well in the hand and the whole thing is lighter than the original. (Disclosure… Olfa gave me one to review!)

FYI – the pull-down for the blade guard is higher on the handle than in the traditional cutter – it has taken a bit of getting used to. The bottom line is this… you must get the cutter that you will CLOSE. If you can’t easily push the guard up, then get one that springs back. You are NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE THING OPEN on the table!

OK – back to the blades… When do you change out a blade? As soon as the sound of cutting doesn’t “swish” anymore… the sound gets harsher, louder, more grind-y as it dulls. As soon as you notice that you are leaning harder into the cut. And well before you notice that you had to go back and saw on a cut because of the dull spot from when you ran over something. The harder you lean into a cut, the more likely you are to have an accident. If you are really, really leaning in, and you jump the blade off the edge of the ruler, guess where it’s going to go? Right across your ruler hand. YEOWCH.

Yes they are expensive, but less so if you get the 5 or 10 pack on sale at the chain store with the coupon (and there is always a coupon… if not in the mail then in the chain store’s free smart phone app). And if you’re being a total peach, you’ll suck up the coupon difference and buy them at your local quilt store (you DO want the local quilt store to still be there when you want great fabric, right?).

Your hand is worth it. TRULY. If you slice up your tendons you are going to want a hand specialist to put them back together, because you need this hand to made more quilts without hurting for years to come.

How do you get rid of a dead blade? I collect them in a spare blade case, which gets tossed when it’s full:

And when I don’t have a case available, I tape them to a piece of mat board (these are my dead 60mm blades, and this piece of board hangs in my studio):

OK – now go clean your cutter and make something!

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