Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Cricut Chirp! (More on cutting felt with the Cricut...)

Exciting day for me!  I was spotlighted in the Cricut Chirp, a newsletter for Cricut owners.  After doing more experimenting with cutting felt, I put together some pictures and more tips for cutting felt and submitted it.  Since this answers a few questions I've gotten since my first post about cutting felt, I thought I'd post the little segment here, too.  Fun stuff!

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: Tomi Ann Hill
About: I'm a 31-year-old mother of three and a certified Cricut addict. I've been papercrafting for about 13 years, but it's only been a passion since I first got my hands on a Cricut nearly four years ago. Now I can't get enough, and I've expanded from papercrafting to using my Cricut for all sort of fabric crafting as well!
Customer Spotlight Winnerspacer Featured Customer Projectspacer Tomi Ann's Project: Fabulous Felt Clippies
Cartridges Used:
- Home Decor
- Mini Monograms
- Plantin SchoolBook

Instructions: I am willing to admit that I have an addiction to cute little accessories for my little girl, and a whole new world has opened up to me now that I learned how to use my Cricut to cut felt for creating little clippies!

Here are my best tips for cutting felt:

1. Only use wool felt. The cheap polyester stuff from the craft aisle, or that you buy on the bolt won't work. Wool felt is actually a blend of wool and rayon, and it is much stiffer and nicer than the polyester stuff.  The best source I've found for wool felt is www.woolfeltcentral.com.  They have over 70 colors, and the price is the best I've found.  I've also bought wool felt locally at a quilt shop.

2. Use a stabilizer, just as you would to cut out other fabrics. But peel the backing paper away before you load it onto your cutting mat. That backing paper sticks to the mat terribly and isn't needed during cutting. You'll save your mats and your sanity if you just take it off beforehand! (This works for other fabrics as well.)

3. Load the felt onto the mat adhesive-side down.

4. I cut mine at blade depth 6, speed and pressure at max. You may need to adjust for your machine. Check your blade housing frequently to remove the felt-fluff buildup. You may need to use the multi-cut function to get a finished cut.

5. Make sure you run a lint roller over your mat after cutting so get any remaining fibers off. For the projects pictured here, I used wool felt in a variety of colors and cut it using the Plantin Schoolbook (for the flowers), Mini-Monograms (for the scallop circle), and Home Decor (birdie) cartridges. I also used buttons, beads, and big brads for extra embellishment. I mounted the finished shapes to alligator clips, snap clips, or pin backs. Voila! Fabulous custom accessories, made in minutes with my Cricut!

15 comments:

  1. congrats girl....the flowers are amazing....big hugs

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  2. I thought that they were fabulous the first time you posted them. ;) Congrats on making the Chirp spotlight!! I really want to go and get me some of that wool felt so that I can try it out, too.

    Hugs,
    Amy ♥

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  3. Congrats on making the Chirp! And thanks AGAIN for always sharing your creativity with us!

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  4. Congratulations and thanks for the all the great tips! Your felt clippies are wonderful ... definitely a technique I'm trying soon.

    Jo xx

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  5. CONGRATULATIONS! I was so excited to see your name in the Chirp. Your projects are totally amazing, and thanks for the tips on the felt. I too, have an addiction to clippies for my two girls. Now, thanks to you, I can just make my own! Thanks Tomi!

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  6. Congratulations - thank you for sharing your tips with us.
    I will now have to try this.
    Hugs
    Fi

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  7. Is there a certain percentage of wool and rayon you use? Will the 35% wool 65% rayon wool work? Or does it need to be 100% wool? Thanks!

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  8. I never though you would be able to cut felt. Thanks for working out all the kinks... You are so clever... CONGRATS on the Chirp spotlight...

    HUGS
    BROOKE

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  9. thank you for the info! I've been dying to use my cricut to cut flower clippies for my dd. Where do you buy your wool felt?

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  10. Hi there! Congrats on your Chip spotlight!! That's great. I love your wool tips.. i to have tried & failed. I've tried everthing from multi-cut to changing my setting and even used the deep cutting blade on depth 6!! It still isn't cutting through the wool felt I have. Maybe the stuff I have is just too thick? It's from Felt Works @ Hobby Lobby. Any other suggestions??
    Thanks a bunch.
    Jody

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  11. Hi:
    Can you please share how you made the pretty burlap pillow with the bird on a branch silhouette? Did you stencil it with fabric ink or was it a transfer? Thank you so much. I love your blog & your beautiful projects!

    Kim, St. Augustine, FL

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  12. Hi, Kim -- thanks for the comment! There's no way to contact you from your comment, so I hope you stop by again. I have a post about the burlap pillows here:

    http://tomiannie.blogspot.com/2010/08/porch-rocker-pillows.html

    I did them using freezer paper stencils. Easy and fun!

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  14. I'm finding it hardest to get through the backing--I used the Heat and Bond that you recommended, and while the felt is cutting just fine, the adhesive will NOT! I've put it on "multi-cut" and it's still not enough. Did you cut only once or twice and get through? Do you think I should try a deep-cut blade? Do you know if there's a way to "multi-cut" more than 2x? (It's hard to line it up for another go-round.) I'll check back and hope you see this new comment. Thanks for your advice!

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  15. Hi, Cara -- you can try a deep-cut blade if you have one, but I wouldn't invest in one just for this. If you have a gypsy or Design Studio, you can set it to cut more than twice. If you're just cutting straight from the cartridge, I think your best bet would be to do the first multi-cut, and then instead of unloading your mat, just hit "load paper." This will load your mat to the same place you loaded it the first time (so you won't have that doesn't-quite-line-up problem), and you can do a second multi cut. I hope that helps!

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