Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Happy Weekend, everyone! A few weeks ago, I sent an email to all the current ScissortailQuilting.com subscribers to let them know that “I’m back” and that I am actively working on new content for this website. I also invited them to participate in a survey about Accuquilt use. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Accuquilt system, you can learn more about it on their website.

It was the first email I had sent since January 2020. (Not counting the automatic emails that go out to new subscribers.) At best, I expected a sprinkling of people would respond to the Accuquilt Survey. I never expected so many people would respond with a “Welcome Back!” and other words of encouragement. To say that I was a little overwhelmed by the kind words and responses would be an understatement. I spent several hours the following Friday responding to those who had taken the time to cheer me on.

Quite a few also responded letting me know specific needs they have as a quilter, and I realized that a second, more open-ended survey might be a good idea. After all, the real purpose of the survey was to help me get my bearings and help me figure out which direction this little bird needs to fly. More on that in a minute, but first I thought readers might be interested to know the results of the first survey.

Accuquilt Survey Details

Unlike Flying Geese who seem to instinctively know whether to fly North or South, I found myself considering several directions for this website. One direction was possibly rewriting patterns to be “Accuquilt Friendly,” so I decided that the best course of action was to survey the quilters who come to this website to see what they want.

The Accuquilt Survey specifically asked “Do you use the Accuquilt system to cut your fabrics?” People could respond in two ways. They could reply back to my email, or they could go to the website and respond to a popup survey widget. (FYI – a few used the contact form on my website to reply because they did not see the popup widget. I suspect this may be due to having popups disabled in the browser, and I should have thought about that possibility).

While many people replied to me by email, about twice as many used the online survey. You can see the results (by percentage) in the table below.

SURVEY RESULTS	Yes	No
Email responders	46%	54%
Website Survey Responders	34%	64%
Overall Total	37%	63%

Clearly the “No’s” win, but 37% is still a pretty significant number.

Several people gave me an emphatic NO. Most of these told me that they really enjoy the actual cutting. And I totally relate to that. I think cutting is my favorite part, and I love the challenge of getting my cuts super accurate.

Reasons to Accuquilt

I know that Accuquilt users often have specific reasons for being loyal to the product. Some of these reasons are:

• Many simply do not enjoy cutting and/or have trouble cutting accurately, and the Accuquilt system solves this problem for them
• Others want the speed that the higher-end Accuquilt machines provide
• but more often than not many Accuquilt users have a physical challenge (such as Arthritis) that using Accuquilt solves.

Many of the survey responders indicated one of these reasons. Quite a few of the “YES” responders (both in email and in the online survey) mentioned that they do not want patterns that encourage them to buy more dies. They have already invested quite a bit of money into the system and they are looking to get more bang for their buck.

Based on these results, I am inclined to amend some of the more popular pattern downloads on the site (but probably not all of them) to make them Accuquilt friendly.

Other Quilting Needs and the way forward

Before I close, I thought I would share some of the needs that a few of the quilters shared with me, and I invite you to comment below with how you feel about any of these ideas.

• one person mentioned wanting patterns that reference the Deb Tucker rulers. (I absolutely love these rulers personally and endorse them on my product recommendation page. If you are not familiar with them you might want to learn about them because they solve some unique problems that help with accuracy.)
• Several mentioned wanting patterns that focus on smaller baby/child quilts.
• A few mentioned wanting instructions for specific quilt blocks that are not currently on the site

As those comments came in I realized that what I really need to know is, “What problem can I help you solve?” I wondered, “Why did you really come to this website?” Was it just to grab a free pattern? Do you plan to use that pattern to design your own quilt? Are you looking for help knowing how to customize a quilt using a certain block? Are you just looking for design inspiration or design tips? Or are you looking for better ways to keep your quilting organized? Is it because you want to be a better quilter and you need some instruction with a particular technique?

Which way do I fly?

I started this website in 2015 with the goal of creating the world’s greatest quilting website. 😉
If I don’t really understand what information you need how will I ever achieve that goal? There are a lot of good quilting websites out there. Does this one really do anything different from the others? So, I’ve created a new survey on the site trying to get more answers.

In addition comments are open on this page for two weeks, and I would love to hear any thoughts this little post may have sparked in you.

Until next time…