Easy Fabric Iron-On's and Applique with the Silhouette or Cameo

Call me the queen of obvious labeling, but I was dying to have a little camera pouch for my point-and-shoot with this cute little camera design from the Silhouette library. Now if you don't have a Silhouette or comparable cutting machine, you can certainly do handmade applique's like this with the interfacing, some scissors, and some patience. 

This basically works by ironing on some double-sided interfacing (I used Heat Bond) to cotton fabric (nothing heavier or too frail) cutting it out, then using the cut design as you would an iron-on, stitching around the edges afterward if you choose to. Silhouette sells their own interfacing... but I mean, let your wallet be the deciding factor there. It is kinda pricey!

Decide what you want to make, and roughly how large you want your design. Something I realized when choosing my fabric for the above projects is that pattern-on-pattern didn't show up as well, so I backed each design with a solid color fabric. To do that, once in Silhouette you can use the Offset tool to make an outline that is fatter than your design, or you can simply iron on your cutout design to a piece of solid fabric and cut around it with scissors. More on the Offset tool below.

Cut your piece of fabric to the side you need, allowing a bit of excess so you don't have to be precise about laying it down on the cutting mat, then iron on the paper-backed Heat Bond interfacing. It is a cinch to do and you can tell when it has adhered. 

Place the fabric onto your (dirty and neglected) cutting mat. Burnish the fabric down onto the mat so that it adheres well. If it is a new or recently re-stickied (real word there) mat, rubbing it down with your hand will be fine. Otherwise, give it a nice firm burnishing. Note the faint grid marks on the cutting mat, an exact replica of the cutting mat and grid will appear on the Silhouette Studio software.

The "background" in the Silhouette Studio software is actually your cutting mat. Where you place your design on this virtual cutting mat is exactly where it will be cut out from on your actual mat. Really, it is oddly precise... kinda impressive. 

Here you can see I've done a flower design, and my camera design is at the bottom. I like to use extra paper, vinyl, fabric, whatever I'm cutting and go ahead and cut out designs to use for future projects. After you have placed your design, make sure it isn't too intricate to be cut from fabric (though you can get kinda intricate!) and that you have enough fabric covering the area of the mat where your design will be cut. 

Tip: If a design is a bit too intricate, like a font that looks a little too thin, click on the design to select it, then select the Offset tool. Play around with the width and "corner" or "rounded". Essentially this is like bolding your design as you would text, to beef it up a little and make it less thin. After you have made your new bolder design/font, simply click the older too-thin design and then delete it. 

Load your fabric/cutting mat into the machine by placing it under the roller bar and pressing the "Enter" button on the machine. It will grab the mat and you are all set to cut!

Click on "Silhouette Cut Settings" in the Silhouette Studio software and select "Fabric (with interfacing)". Above you'll see that mine has "Custom Media" selected. This is because I bumped the thickness up from 32 to 33 after I selected Fabric With Interfacing, and anytime you change something in the Fabric or any other setting, it considers it a Custom setting. To be honest, 32 is fine but my blade was a little dull and whenever that's the case, I pump down speed and bump up thickness. It will tell select which color cap to use for you, above it indicates pink, the .3mm blade cap.  If you have a newer blade it will tell you what thickness setting to turn it to. 

Click "Cut!"

 The machine will begin to cut the design and when it stops, press the same "Enter" button on the machine you pressed to load the cutting mat, and it will eject it. 

Now it is time to "weed" the design, meaning getting rid of the excess material (negative space) to reveal only the design itself. I find a dental pick is ideal for removing any small portions of the design (it works especially well when weeding vinyl).

 Once you are left with just your design, peel it off the paper backing, place the pieces carefully where you would like them on your project, then iron them into place just as you ironed the interfacing onto the fabric in the beginning.

 If you have multiple intricate pieces, instead of having to transfer each one by hand and praying they stay still while you work, get some Rhinestone Transfer Film from Ebay or save a piece of the clear plastic that tshirt vinyl comes on. It is the same stuff. Lay it over your design, rub until the fabric has adhered to the plastic, then simply place the entire plastic piece where you would like on the fabric piece you intend to iron your design on. Place a piece of cloth (extra fabric, something thin like cotton or a tshirt) on top and then iron down. Don't peel off the plastic until cool. 

If you wanted to back your design with a different fabric as I did for each of mine, select your design and then use "offset" which will create a border around the image allowing you to tinker with how wide a border you would like. Once you do this, delete (or move off of the virtual cutting mat on screen) the original design leaving only the offset design. If there are "holes" in the bolder offset you created (like the heart on my camera) that you don't want for your border/backing piece, simply right-click on the design and select "Release Compound Path" then select the pieces you want to delete and delete them! Cut this out of your contrasting fabric and iron your design onto it after ironing it onto your project. 

I hope that wasn't too confusing, I probably should have taken more photos! You can do lots of things with this, from little pouches like the ones I made, to shirts, monogrammed items, throw pillows, anything you can imagine. You can hand embroider or carefully machine sew around the edges of your design to give it a truly appliqued look if you wish.