I actually bought myself a mat cutter a few years ago. Its a small, simple hand held piece that has a retractable razor set in at an angle so the cuts it makes are beveled. Like all other such skills, its simple to do and extremely difficult to do well. Years ago, my Mom gave me a self healing cutting mat, a clear fabric ruler with a lip and a circular razor. These are quilting tools but I use them to cut large pieces of paper and cardboard. This plays hell with the edge of my razors but it does make it nice and easy to cut large pieces quickly and precisely.
Have you ever seen a circular razor? Scariest thing I own. And yes, I do have a shotgun.
Any Home invaders or Hoods out there; never break into the home of a quilter. These seemingly defenseless little women have an arsenal of tools that would make your blood curdle (and run in rivers) if they were ever turned on a fellow human being. Good thing quilting is also a very soothing hobby; hand crafts are extremely good for one's mental health. You never hear of someone going postal at a quilting bee. If that ever happened, the mayhem would be unbelievable. The aftermath would be Little Big Horn, I'm tellin' ya.
Oh yeah; cutting mats.
The first thing about cutting a mat is getting the measurements right. this is not as easy as it looks. As all carpenter know; measure twice, cut once. With a mat, you must get the size of the mat and the size of the opening precisely correct or your mat job will suck. As for the opening, the size must be correct, the placement of the opening in the plane of the mat must be correct and the edges had better be square or you can induce vertigo in anyone looking at it. If you live with an obsessive compulsive, hanging mismatted art on your walls could send that person to the hospital.
so yeah, it takes some practice.
Once you get the hang of how to measure the opening, you have to practice making the cuts. It's handy that as an artist, I can visualize things fairly well because if you're not careful, your bevels could wind up going the wrong way. So far, I've cut all my mats from the back, so that I can use a pencil to mark my lines. I also had to mark my cutter so I could tell just where the blade comes through. I was a little surprised that my cutter doesn't have such markings. Maybe one that cost more than six bucks would have. Also, I cut from the back so I don't have to worry about fingerprints and smudges on the front of the matt. If I get really good, I may someday be able to cut from the front but if I get really good from the back, why would I?
I cut about four small mats before I got one with clean edges. That's the hardest part. You set the blade into the board and push, slowly and smoothly to the end mark to make the cut clean. I hold the straight edge with my left hand, the cutter in my right, my right thumb is what holds the blade through the board while I try to push the cutter to the end of the mark while keeping everything else in place. I've gotten pretty good at small cuts; I can do an 8" or 10"cut fairly well. I just made my first successful 10"x14" opening. I had to cut it twice. My first attempt looked like I used a weed whacker on it.
You can buy mats at most art supply stores and I will probably continue to do so, when the pieces I'm matting are standard. But most of my stuff isn't. It's not terribly expensive to have a simple, white mat cut. As with everything else, the more elaborate you get, the more you pay for it. The problem is time. I decided to do my own when I was told that a plain, white, 10x10 with a 7x7 opening would take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks, depending on how busy they were. Who wants to wait? I wanted it on the wall today.
So for $8.00 I bought a sheet of mat board and by dinner time had cut five (two useable) mats.
The better I get at this, the more money I'll save but even better is the amount of time I'll save.
The second thing I've been teaching myself is how to block needlepoint.
Unless one uses a frame (which one doesn't do unless one is completely nuts. Or French.), in the course of stitching a needlepoint design, the canvas gets pulled out of shape. "Blocking" is the process of pulling the canvas back to square, so that it looks good and can be finished into whatever you want to do with it.
It's not terribly difficult but it is tedious and time consuming. Being also completely necessary, the blockers can pretty much charge whatever they like. The last thing my mom had blocked cost $80.00!
I had most of the things I needed, including a large wooden board, in my office. All I had to buy to get started was a box of brass nails. Then, a little research on line and I was ready to go. I threw my board on the floor of Josie's bedroom (when she moves out for real, I always thought I'd turn the entire upstairs into my workroom. If I could afford it, I'd put skylights in the north facing side of the roof.), got out my squirt bottle and box of brass tacks and went to work. I had a stack of Christmas ornaments, a large table runner I'd stitched a few years ago and forgotten all about and a medium sized canvas I'd like to make into a handbag.
First step, wet the canvas thoroughly but not saturated. Then, nail it to the board, pulling it as close to the original shape as I can get it.
Wait for it to dry, repeat first and second steps.
Its the waiting for the pieces to dry that takes so much time. This part is easy for me; I just squirt, nail and forget about it for two days.
The Christmas ornaments blocked out quickly. I've already brought a bunch of them over to my Mom to stitch up.
The runner took a bit longer, as it was really pulled out of shape. But after four or five wettings and re-nailing, it looks pretty squared up to me. Next step; finishing.
Once I get good at blocking my own needlepoint, I think I'll have to buy myself a sewing machine. There's no reason in the world I shouldn't be able to finish my own things.
If I had the entire upstairs to work in, I'd have room for a large mat cutting station (maybe even my own framing tools), space to block and finish my needlepoint, a desk for writing...not only would I never have to leave my house, I'd never have to leave my room.
That's my idea of Heaven.