I am a quilter so I have a number of rotary cutting mats in various sizes, I can't imagine quilting without my rotary mats and my rotary cutter. Most of my mats are self-healing Olfa mats. They have a life span of about 4-5 years of frequent use. Eventually they lose the self-healing properties. CalibreArt Mats are noticeably thicker than any of my other mats. In my video I show one of my Olfa mats next to CalibreArt Mat so you can see the difference.
My Olfa mats have markings on one side and are plain green on the other side. CalibreArt Mats have inch markings on one side and centimeter markings on the other side. Even though centimeter are not useful for me to quilting, they are useful when I just need to lay fabric on a straight line. I find double sided mat more useful than having a totally unlined side like Olfa mats.
One of Olfa mats does not lay flat, it has a bit of a wave which presses down when I cut. CalibreArt mat is much thicker and heavier, it lays totally flat. Calibre mat's thickness (measured with a digital calliper) is 0.115". Olfa mat's thickness is 0.062".
I got the large size (24" x 36") it covers almost my entire sewing table and it really makes cutting easier, I do not have to reposition and move the fabric. This is a very nice mat!
Can anything be improved? Yes. My Olfa mats show the measurements on all 4 sides of the mat. CalibreArt mat shows numbers only on the left and bottom. Sometimes the fabric covers the bottom and left side and it is harder the tell the measurements. It is a minor nit but I am including it in hope that the manufacturer is reading reviews and might make this great mat even better in the future.
Update 2/28/15: Manufacturer contacted to let me know that they will add additional measurement markers for these mats. Nice to hear when manufacturer is so responsive to customer suggestions.
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.
Ali Julia review ★★★★★
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