So, apparently you can’t just slap down a piece of regular felt onto a Cricut mat and expect it to cut out shapes for you. I am disappointed. I purchased a special fabric mat, a special blade…my first experiment was to make a series of small circles (eyes) which I’ve always hated fiddling with. The Cricut made some jabs, but the piece of felt came out looking chewed. I thought I might have made the job too small, so I made the next few tries with a simple circle shape. Nope. Apparently I need to put bonding on the felt, or use stiffened felt.
Ok, I had some stiffened felt. I prefer regular felt, I’d ordered a pack of this stuff by mistake. So I did a test circle. Pretty good- it only stuck in one spot. Naturally, I then went to the most complicated, fiddly cutting I could think of, a small map of the world to use on a felt globe.
Test one went well for half of the design, then went back to chewing. I made the design smaller (as one does) and tried again. This one came out pretty good, but I noticed that the cutter was inadvertently picking up the already cut pieces, getting them caught in the rollers and sometimes back under the blade upside-down. Not sure how to fix that except by having heavily glued mats at all times. The Americas were stuck around Mexico and I had to cut them free.
I have also experimented more with vinyl. Just like with 3D printing, the piece that comes out of the machine needs clean-up. In the case of vinyl stickers, it means picking out the details with a pin, putting back down anything that was pulled up, and fiddling with transfer tape to pick up the whole design when it only wants some of it.
I think it will be a useful tool- just not magic. Simpler shapes will have fewer spots to pull up or snag.
