No cutter? No problem!

From the Textile Museum website

Some folks are facing this pandemic without a rug hooking cutter. If you can borrow one for the duration, that’s great!  If not, here are some instructions on how to cut strips by hand. This is not something most folks want to do on a regular basis but if you’re only cutting a small amount, (or are a glutton for punishment) here’s how:

The first 4 minutes of this podcast from cindy Gaye gets into doing it by hand:



To cut a #8 (which is 8/32 of an inch, aka 1/4 inch):
- tear a strip 1 inch wide
- cut it into half
- cut the 2 halves in half, and now you’ve got 4 strips of #8

To make a #4 (4/32 or 1/8 inch)
- cut each of those #8’s you made above in half

To make a #6 (6/32 or 3/16 inch)
- tear a strip 3/4 of an inch wide
- cut it into half
- cut the 2 halves in half, and now you’ve got 4 strips of #6

If you’ve managed to produce a fairly straight #6 on some well-fulled fabric, you can indeed cut that in half to produce a #3.