Silhouette Cut Fabric for Applique

Ever wonder how to get perfectly cut applique fabric pieces in regular fabric like quilting weight cotton? Sure, you can iron on sewable bonding but you'll still have to use a scissors and it still doesn't always look perfect. Well, at least mine never did.

Enter the Silhouette brand cutting machine. I love this thing! I was sent one to play with and wow, this this rocks. Not only does it cut paper and cardstock like your own little personal die cutting machine, but it can cut fabric! Any cotton fabric that you already have in your stash.

They sell fabric interfacing for Silhouette that I'm sure is ideal, but I didn't have any on hand so I wanted to see if the Heat n Bond sewable interfacing I had at home would work. It did, but next time I'll try the stuff they provide since it was hard to get off the sheet after...see below.

So first, I cut out rectanges of my HeatNBond and ironed it onto the wrong side of my cotton fabric. Then I cut out the rectangles and placed them (interfacing side down) on the sticky cutting mat that I'll feed through the cutting machine.

Meanwhile, I picked out a retro TV shape to cut out.

I used the pink blade and loaded the fabric sheet into the machine...

At first I didn't think it worked. That is how clean a cut it was! It wasn't until I sort of bent the sheet that I realized it was actually cut. The retro TV design lifted right off, leaving the backing of the interfacing behind and the plastic stuff on my fabric. Just perfect.

So I ironed it onto my fabric and then sewed the edges. Yay! The only downside was that it was really a pain to peel off the interface backing from the sticky sheet. In the future I'll buy their interfacing!