I like cutting two-by's with a chop saw. Or slicing tubes with a pipe cutter, or trimming veneer with a router. Because all of those materials are rigid and you get nice, clean cuts that are exactly what you intended. But as someone who's new to fabrics—I just re-upholstered the stool above for my studio—I absolutely hate cutting soft materials by hand. The required steps of making and tracing patterns seems like an inefficient expenditure of time and paper; I'm also clumsy with shears and the fact that the material moves when you're trying to cut a precise curve drives me nuts.
So admittedly I may be more excited than you'd be to come across this PT-72 CNC cutter, designed to carve intricate patterns in marine canvas, upholstery vinyl and the polyethylene you see in the video below. It's an interesting variant on a CNC tool in that it uses a directional blade that drags across the surface to make a cut, rather than using a bit that rotates at high speeds (which of course would not work with fabric). And I kind of like the THUMP noise the device makes when engaging the fabric, as it seems more soothingly analog than the banshee-like wail of a CNC cutting through hard stuff.
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