Expert Review: My New Favorite Cutting Mat

McCalls Quilting Magazine Editor and expert quilter, Gigi Levsen, has a new fav quilting tool—the Olfa 6” x 18” self-healing cutting mat. Read on for her expert review on this cutting mat.

This article is sponsored by OLFA.

Do you give much thought to your cutting mats? For years, I just had a single, large 24” x 36” cutting mat and thought it was all I needed. And it was sufficient, until it wasn’t. If I needed to move it, there was nowhere else to put it. If I wanted to take it along for any work out of the house, it became a huge issue to transport it while keeping it from bending out of shape. So, when I heard about the new 6” x 18” self-healing cutting mat from Olfa, I thought it could be an excellent addition to my tool arsenal, especially to fill the specific gap I had, for an easily moveable and transportable cutting and work surface. 

It’s been really helpful! Now I can have a small cutting space right next to my sewing machine, or on one end of my ironing board to quickly cut apart triangles squares or trim stitch-and-flip corners before pressing (I keep it well away from the iron, and so should you!). It’s got self-healing technology so even though I’ve been using it regularly, it still seems brand-new. But it really became the MVP when I started on a project that I’ve been planning for a while; something that I hadn’t done before and needed to experiment with.

Regular readers of McCall’s Quilting may remember my version of Deliciously Mod, featured in our January/February 2024 issue. I’d mentioned that I planned to cut the quilt’s jagged edges into wavy curves and bind the curves with bias binding. It’s been quilted and ready to bind for months, but I’d neglected it due to working on other projects. I decided to finally tackle that project and my little Olfa mat ended up being invaluable as I figured out, then carried out my plan. 

First, I used the grid markings on the mat to make my curve template, so I could mark the curves onto my quilt.

Then, because of the wide space and ideal height of my ironing board, I used it under my quilt as I marked the curves. Having a sturdy, hard surface underneath the quilt, rather than the relatively squishy ironing board surface, made it so much easier to get sharp, visible marked lines with both dark and light marking tools.

The white marking pen from Clover is really helpful for marking dark fabrics, but it doesn’t work very well if it’s used on a soft surface. It must have the support and resistance of a solid surface under the fabric for the marks to show up clearly, and the little Olfa mat was literally perfect for my purposes—nice and sturdy but not at all unwieldy. I’ll update on this project soon; the marking is going beautifully then I just have to prepare and add the bias binding!

While many people won’t use this mat in the same way, it just reinforced to me how unpredictably useful and versatile a smaller cutting mat could be, besides the obvious benefits of being easy to take for work on the go. So, from one busy quilter to another, consider supplementing your toolbox with this handy, easy to use, easy to transport, and easy to store tool!

Happy quilting!