Silhouette Cameo for Fabric Cutting and Stencil Making

One of the bonuses that I got from the Pro Chemical and Dye workshops this Fall was learning about the Silhouette Cameo die cutting machine.   Two of my fellow students brought fat folders of custom made stencils to use in class.   They generously demonstrated the Silhouette software over lunch one day.   It seemed easy to use.   Cyndi M. showed off the intricate small fabric pieces she was cutting for a quilt kit she'd designed.   Cutting fabric?  Cool!   One of the goals of this grant is to create my own art lexicon and generate tools.   I knew I wanted a Silhouette Cameo...and JoAnn Fabrics delivered in December.

I had a quilt challenge based on a heart quote due in February.   Cutting text for the quote sounded like a good job for the Silhouette.  I tried a test piece first with these goals:

   - cut plain cotton broadcloth plain
   - cut painted cotton broadcloth (Setacolor transparent and opaque fabric paints)
   - cut painted cotton broadcloth (ProFab textile paint and ProBrite metallic textile paint)
   - cut the above fabrics with Mistyfuse fusible webbing already applied
   - cut in reverse with the paint side next to the mat and the Mistyfuse applied to the top

Test piece

The results look messy, but were informative!   I discovered that the painted fabrics cut better than unpainted fabrics.  There were still occasional places on the bias in curvy letters where the cuts weren't complete.  The occasional small snip of the scissor was necessary.   I attribute this to the fact that the blade moves in a grid pattern - north/south and east/west.  The blade doesn't curve.   For the price of the Silhouette, I'm going to live with it!   The brand of fabric paint didn't seem to make a difference.  Mistyfuse on top or bottom cut equally well.   I had layered two thicknesses of Mistyfuse on my fabric because the letters were small.  They fused nicely to the quilt top.  I wasn't sure if the mat adhesive would grip the Mistyfuse and detach it, but no worries!   The tackiness of the mat was perfect.

On the left is the cardstock letter audition, on the left is the fabric version.

Onto the lettering results... Unsurprisingly,  I found that the tall skinny letters in thin fabric want to bias as you peel them off the cutting mat.  I quickly selected a more robust font...   Research done, I was ready to move forward cutting cardstock letters for a test layout on my busy background fabric.  The pale yellow paper didn't look very good on the fabric, but I got the letter positioning sorted out thanks to the audition.   I mixed a higher chroma yellowish green paint to help stiffen the broadcloth fabric.   My background fabric was a test piece from a soy wax dyeing exercise that had been kicking around my studio.  The slashes of purple on the bottom were very distracting.   Used the lettering to deemphasize the purple.  I think it worked.

12"x12" heart quilt challenge for the PMPatchwork Guild

Next, I wanted to create a stencil.  I used a graphics program to create a crescent shape, then put three of these shapes together into a ball.  I imported this graphic file into the Silhouette software, made multiple copies of the ball and created the cutting file.  My first attempt was cut in cardstock.   You can see it in the upper right hand side of the test piece photo above.   The crescent balls were too big and sparsely set for my taste.  I changed the scale and crammed in more motifs.   I adhered a piece of inkjet transparency plastic onto the cutting mat and guessed a blade depth of 3 based on the Silhouette's suggestions for other materials.  I guessed wrong.   I have the cuts thru the mat to prove it...ooops...   Happily, I was watching the die cutter (mesmerized by the new toy...) and stopped it quickly.   I ended up with a stencil that pleases me:-)