Hello, hello - Karen here with my DOTW post.



We have a cute little flower design this week and I used it to make a fabric flower for a little tote bag.

I started by ungrouping the design and removed the internal line of all the pieces.



I then filled them with a pink polka dot pattern.  I adjusted the transparancy of the pattern on each of the upper two pieces to make them a slightly different colour. I filled the leaves with a green pattern and the centre  with a yellow pattern.

Once printed onto printable cotton fabric, I cut the flowers out, ironed the large flower and leaves to the bag  and sewed the remaining one adding a few buttons to the centre of the flower.

Hello, Janet here with a variety of projects using the Silhouette Flocked Heat Transfer Vinyl. I love the velvety texture and have found it doesn't need to be used exclusively on fabrics - it works great on other surfaces too!

I've used the flocked media in orange and white to make a baby gift set using some of the cute fox themed files by Amy Robison (#37332, #40840, #40570). The media and the files are so versatile that I was able to make a range of themed items, and really only touched the surface - there are so many more possibilities for a complete fox-themed baby shower, or child's birthday party. There are other cute animals too, so a complete woodland theme is another possibility.



Baby Vests

My first project was the vest with the complete fox on it (information on the one with the tail comes later). I used the fox file (#37332), and aside from re-sizing, cut it straight from the file in white, orange and black flocked heat transfer (not forgetting to MIRROR BEFORE CUTTING, of course). I applied the single orange piece first and then the white pieces, finishing with the black. There is more information on applying Flocked Heat Transfer in this post.



I made two further vests using Amy's Fox Cupcake Wrapper file (#40840). Yes, you did read that correctly - I used the cupcake file. At first glance I'd thought that the head and tail were separate from the wrapper, but they were actually joined up to the rest of the wrapper, so I used the knife tool to cut them apart. I love, love, LOVE the tail and think it will look SO cute on a baby.




Fox Greeting Card

For this project I used the original Fox file (#37332) and the Print & Cut Woodland Party Invitation file (#40570). The card file is made up from a number of separate Print & Cut elements (thank you for providing all the elements separately Amy, it makes the file SO versatile).

I changed the dimensions to make a square card and just printed the backgrounds (grey on the front, and woodland on the back), together with the oval and the banner, adding the word 'congratulations'.

The word was curved to the shape of the banner by dragging the typed word to the top edge of a copy of the banner shape by the transform handle, then ungrouped, and moved it onto the other copy of the banner. It was filled with white before being sent to print onto heavy-weight white cardstock.


The fox was cut from orange flock, and regular smooth black and white heat transfer from the original fox file, reduced in size to fit the card. I activated the adhesive on the pieces in turn using my heat press, but an iron on a non-steam setting would work too.

I love the velvety texture of the fox on the card. You'll find details of applying flocked heat transfer to card here and here.



Fox Wall Art

This is a plain canvas with a piece of printable cotton canvas adhered to the top and sides, and the flocked fox applied on top. For this project I also used the original Fox file (#37332) and the Print & Cut Party Invitation file (#40570).

The fox was cut as for the original version of the baby vest and applied to the background BEFORE it was attached to the canvas. This order of work makes it so much easier than trying to apply the heat transfer direct to the canvas.

The woodland background was printed with the grey background (taken from the invitation file) onto a piece of Silhouette Printable Cotton Fabric. You can read all about printing on the printable cotton here. A piece of regular patterned fabric could be substituted, but I was unable to find anything suitable locally, this is where the printable cotton really comes into its own.

After applying the fox to the woodland background, I ironed the whole piece onto the canvas. I then used fabric adhesive around the edges to secure the background to the canvas.



If you haven't already tried flocked heat transfer I hope you'll try it. I love its feel and versatility, and I hope you do to.


Bye for now,





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Hello, Janet here with a little tutorial on how to design a sewing pattern to make this cute holder for your sunglasses (or regular reading glasses), and some information generally on using the Silhouette Studio software to make your own sewing templates. The decorative fabric used for this project was printed from the Studio software. Instructions to do that can be found here.

I regularly use the Silhouette Studio software to design all kinds of projects; from card layouts, picture placements, to sewing patterns and templates. It makes drawing to scale very simple, and I no longer need to resort to graph paper and pencil for designs of all types.

This glasses case is based on a circle with a cut away to one side. It is lined with a complementary fabric and padded with wadding adhered to both pieces. The pieces are sewn together with a sewing machine and then it is folded over like a taco (or a pasty) and hand-stitched along one side.



Here are the steps required to make the pattern for the sun glasses holder.

1. If your pattern pieces will be restricted by the size of your fabric (mine had to fit on a piece of Silhouette Printable Cotton Fabric), set your Page settings to reflect that size (Page Setup panel, Page Size tab, set as required using 12"x12" if there are no relevant size restrictions).

2. Using the Drawing Tools, draw a circle of the required size (mine just fitted the width of the letter-sized paper). Select the Ellipse shape and hold down the shift key to draw a circle. Draw a second circle for the cutaway. If your glasses are deeper than those shown in the picture, you'll need to make this circle larger. Overlap the circles as shown, with the left-hand edge of the smaller circle aligned to the centre top of the larger circle, and with a small overlap. Next time around I'd make this second circle larger and the overlap shallower, but you'll need to experiment to find a good fit for your sunglasses.


3. Now subtract the smaller shape from the larger one. To do this first ensure that the smaller circle is in front of the larger one (select it, right mouse click, select Bring to Front).  Then, select both circles, open the Modify panel and select Subtract.
NOTE: 'Subtract' will remove all the overlapping parts of images that are in front of other images. Only the image that is located at the back remains. 




4. Add marks to show where to leave the opening (for turning the pieces from the reverse once sewn together). Use the Freehand Drawing Tool and ensure that the two marks overlap into the interior of the circle. If you are going to print them with your printer, select them both and increase the thickness in the Line Style panel, or they will not print out. As you'll see in the next step, I chose to use a sketch pen instead, so increasing the thickness was unnecessary for me.

5. If you are going to cut your pattern from a different size of paper, now is the time to change it. I changed to 12"x12" and moved the pattern towards the centre. Ensuring that the shape and lines have different line colours, select cut by line and draw the black lines with a sketch pen, and cut the pattern piece (red line) with the regular AutoBlade on a copy paper setting.



6. Once the pattern is cutout, it can be used to cut out the plain, patterned and wadding fabrics. The marks can be transferred onto the plain fabric.



7. Attach one piece of wadding onto the fabrics and machine sew them together with right sides facing, leaving a gap between the marks. Then turn the whole thing right side out and hand stitch down one side. You'll full sewing instructions on my Crafting Quine blog here.


Bye for now,



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PRODUCTS USED:

Hello, Janet here with a quick tutorial for printing edge-to-edge on the Silhouette Printable Cotton Fabric. The Silhouette fabric is a smooth cotton with stabiliser, and a paper backing. It comes in a pack of eight Letter-sized sheets and is perfect for Print & Cut projects as it has an inkjet printable surface. However, for my little sewing project I wanted the largest possible printed area, so printed a pattern edge-to-edge onto the sheet. Using a simple paper pattern, designed in the Silhouette Studio software, I cut the pattern and printed out the fabric.



This was a great opportunity to use one of the printable patterns that I'd bought from the Silhouette Design Store in one of their recent sales. This colourful design with sun-glassed, smiley faces by Renee Jablow (#206783, Color Emoji Pattern) was perfect.

In this post I show how to print on the fabric edge-to-edge. There will be a separate post on how to design the pattern for the sunglasses case in the Silhouette Studio Software, and instructions for the sewing part can be found on my Crafting Quine Blog.




STEP 1: Edge-to-Edge Page Setup

Set up the page in the Silhouette software for Letter-sized media, and turn on the grey print border (Page Setup panel, Page Size tab, adjust Size, tick 'Show Print Border').

The grey border indicates that any printing will only extend to that line. The print area is extended using the Printer Print Setup.




STEP 2: Edge-to-Edge Print Setup

NOTE: This is only possible if your printer has borderless printing capability; not all printers have it.
From the top menu access the Print Page Setup.


Select your printer and then the correct media size, i.e. US Letter, and Borderless. You may not have the same options, as what appears here is based on the options available from the printer selected.




The grey line on the virtual mat should now align with the outline of the page.



STEP 3: Fill the Page with a Pattern

Draw a rectangle the exact size of the page using the rectangle shape from the drawing tools. Fill it with any pattern that has previously been installed in your Silhouette software (select the rectangle, Fill panel, Fill Pattern tab, scroll through and select a pattern). Adjust the scale of the pattern by expanding the display to include Advanced Options. For this pattern I increased the percentage to 112.



STEP 4: Printing the Fabric

Select File and Print, increasing the print quality if the option is available.

Note: When printed, the colours can be a little subdued. If you find this to be the case just increase the saturation of the colours of the fill prior to printing (open Image Effects panel, select Contrast, Brightness & Saturation tab, increase the value on the Saturation slider). I increased my value to 26.




This picture shows the difference - the left had one was printed without the adjustment, and the one on the right was printed with the saturation increased to 26.




Once your fabric is printed, it cuts beautifully with the backing on (you can draw on the backing too). The backing easily peels off and the fabric is then ready for sewing. The reverse of the fabric still has a stabilised backing which allows the fabric to be ironed on to other media (other fabric or even paper and cardstock). The strength of this bond is perfect to use in place of tacking, but doesn't form a permanent, washable bond.

The post on how to design the pattern for the sunglasses case in the Silhouette Studio Software is here.

I hope that you have found this tutorial useful - of course, edge-to-edge printing can be used on other printable media, as well as paper and card, so do try it out.

Bye for now,



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PRODUCTS USED:

Hello, hello - I have made a lovely new make-up bag, ready for my impending holiday, with this week's design of the week - 'Can't Touch This' which I felt was really appropriate as everyone knows you never, ever touch my make-up!


I knew I wanted to use the design as a print and cut file so opened it onto a letter sized design space and found that the cactus was in several parts.  I grouped all the parts of the cactus together and then changed the colour of the text to that of the cactus flowers by using the colour picker tool.


I then mirrored  the cactus and placed it on the other side of the phrase.


Next the size of all elements was changed to 3 ins tall.


Next group the twelve cacti and centre these to your design and replicate below, moving them until you are happy with the design.