Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Cutting Mat for Measuring Fabric
This blog comes from a brilliant question by one of my YouTube subscribers, Denise. She asked:
“Why can’t I just use the lines on my cutting mat for measuring? They’re there for a reason, right?”
It’s a great question, and one lots of quilters wonder about when they start. The short answer is: cutting mats are for cutting on, not for measuring with.
Let me explain why.
1. Cutting Mats Warp Over Time
Mats are flexible, which means that as the years go by, they can bend or distort – especially if you store them leaning against a wall or leave them in a warm place (although neither of those are a great thing to be doing for your cutting mat).
That “warpiness” (totally a word in my quilting vocabulary!) throws off the grid lines. Even if a mat looks flat, those tiny distortions make your measurements go out of sync.
2. Rulers Don’t Lie
Unlike mats, a good quilting ruler stays perfectly true. It doesn’t bend, warp, or change with time.
If you line a ruler up with a cutting mat grid, you’ll often find that at first, the lines seem to match… but a few inches along, they start to drift apart. That tiny difference can really matter when you’re aiming for a perfect ¼ inch seam.
3. Cutting Mats Get Grooves (which is not groovy in any way)
We all have our “favourite spots” on a mat where we cut most often. Over time, repeated cutting creates grooves. Your rotary cutter can slip into these grooves, making it harder to get a clean, straight cut – and those grooves definitely don’t help with accurate measuring!
So What’s the Right Way?
Use your cutting mat for cutting on and for keeping fabric nice and straight.
Use your ruler for measuring and cutting.
👉 Golden Rule:
Mat = protect your table.
Ruler = accurate measurements.
The only time I break this rule? If I need to cut a very large square (say, 16” x 16”) for a cushion back. Then I might use the mat for convenience, but that’s the exception, not the rule.
I do hope that helps,
Happy cutting,
Kim x