A Garage Sale Treasure

This isn’t a product review, the product featured is discontinued.  It’s more of a testimony of what you can do with some creativity.  A couple of years ago, I found a Fiskars® Fuse Creativity System® letterpress/die cutter at a garage sale. From what I’d read it was designed for paper crafting like cutting shapes for making cards or scrap booking, neither of which are hobbies I ever took up. MartMan was impressed with how substantial the Fuse was, so he bought it. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so it sat in my sewing room, under my sewing table. In all the time I’d had it, all I had done with it was some embossed coaster type things for work.

Corn filled neck warmers

After my recent sewing room reorganize effort, I tried to sell the Fuse on a re-sale group online. It didn’t get much interest, which brings me to my discovery. Originally I had pulled it back out to make some tags for neck wraps I’m making. But I’m not really a paper crafter and it wasn’t a particularly creative experience.

I work with fabric, including quilt blocks for bags and pouches. The most time consuming part of the process is cutting all those perfect squares. If you don’t have a perfect square, you will play heck getting perfect points on the finished block and having a nice looking finished panel. I sat and looked at the Fuse wondering if there was a die available for it that would cut fabric, in particular, 5″ squares. A Google search brought me to a video from MaterialGirl338 on YouTube where she used an Accuquilt® die to cut fabric in her new Fuse.

I knew fabric cutters like the Accuquilt GO!® existed, but at $250 to $400 for the starter set, I couldn’t justify it for my hobby crafting. But the Accuquilt cuts perfect, intricate shapes just by rolling the fabric and die with the appropriate shims through the press — a press that looks a lot like a Fiskars Fuse. Accuquilt has fabric cutting dies in a variety of shapes that Fiskars never manufactured, including triangles and squares for making quilt blocks. The cutting dies also look suspiciously a lot like the Fuse dies. It occurred to me, could the Fuse be used with other manufacturer dies to cut fabric? After some more digging, the answer is a resounding YES.

So, I purchased the optional Fuse Adapter kit*, still readily available on Amazon and eBay, and the 5″ square Accuquilt GO® die. Within a few minutes, following the instructions on the info card, I was making perfect 5″ squares in a fraction of the time I’d been spending. It’s fabulous. It accommodates up to five layers of quilting weight cotton, cutting two 5″ squares on each piece of fabric in one pass.

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I looked on Craigslist, and even today I see used Fuse units for sale, usually around $50 for the base unit kit — about a third of the original price. I purchased the optional Adapter Kit for $45 new, and the Accuquilt 5″ square die for $30, new. Between the used base unit, and the new Adapter Kit and die, for about $125, I’m cranking out 5″ squares like a pro.

The info card that came with the Adapter kit lists a number of different die manufacturers that the Fuse will accommodate, including Sizzix®, another very popular die cutting system.

I’m keeping the Fiskars Fuse. And oh, look at the calendar — it’s the end of March, so it’s almost garage sale season again here in Kansas City.

*Although I can’t endorse it, I have seen one YouTube video where the author is using inexpensive Lexan sheets in various thicknesses from the hardware store instead of the Fuse Adapter kit and achieving good results in her Fuse.