Disclaimer: Christmas came for me today. I'm one of those moms who do most of the holiday shopping and I love it, but Christmas rarely holds a surprise. Well the mailman and the FedEx man both brought me delightful surprises today so I'm calling today my early Christmas.
First my mailman brought me this lovely, lovely, present of fabric from Fabric Tree. Thank you so much Mary! I love these prints and so many ideas come to me when I look at them.
Then I was oh so generously gifted by some friends I met a Quilt Market with this adorable little Slice Cutter! Thank you! I must confess that the rest of my day was spent playing with my new Slice. The ornaments just happened, and now while my Slice is re-charging I'll show you how I made them. :)
This is the back of the first one, labelled 'easy.'
You'll use two 4" circles, some trim, and some more trim for a hanger. Use fusible webbing to attach cut shapes to the circles.
If you are lucky enough to have a Slice Cutter, or you're thinking that Santa might bring you one this year, I'll give you some helpful tips and hints at the end.
Cut another piece of trim to be used as a hanger, and sandwich it in between both circles, right sides together. Stitch around the edge of the circles, using your basting stitches as a guide, and leaving a hole for turning and stuffing. Stuff lightly. Hand-stitch opening closed.
Here's the second one I made, and I'm calling it 'easier' because it is. ;)
First cut out two circle or starburst shapes and embellish with your choice of applique using fusible webbing.
Cut a piece of trim for the hanger and sandwich the ends in between your starbursts or circles, wrong sides together. Use embroidery floss or pearl cotton to sew around the ornament with big stitches. Make a few stitches at the top where the hanger is to secure the hanger well.
And finally, this is the third ornament that I'm calling 'easiest'. If you want to skip the easy embroidery, the only sewing to do is sewing on the button.
The 4" star shape has fusible webbing on the back, as do the two hearts.
Fuse the star shape to a piece of felt. Then cut around the edges, leaving about 1/4" to 1/2 inch of felt around the edges.
Fuse more cut out shapes to the star.
Cut a piece of trim for the hanger. Fold it in half, and secure the folded end to the top of the star with a button and a long piece of embroidery thread.
Before you cut the embroidery thread, sew big stitches around the edge of your star shape. This gives interest to the back of the ornament too. Tie off and cut your thread, and then tie a knot at the top of the trim to make the hanger. Done! Please share with us any ornaments you make in our Flickr pool! I love to see what everybody is making.
So here's some tips for using the Slice Cutter in case you already own one or you're planning on owning one soon. First of all. I LOVE the hands free kit. It comes with a much larger cutting plate and of course the magnetic collar that holds the cutter down while it does it's job. Fantastic. Second, you see my daughter Chloe there spreading the adhesive on the glass so the prepared fabric would stick. She had lots of fun doing that but we had trouble using the white glue type adhesive. It does work, but it sometimes takes two applications and you must wait until it is dry. We were very happy to switch to the spray adhesive shown on the right.
I totally recommend using the spray adhesive and lots of it! Spraying just a bit about every other time we put down a new piece of fabric really helped,
Next, the blade. Oh what can I say about that marvelous little blade that cuts such intricate designs? Well, it's comes ready to cut paper. If you read the instructions before you rushed to cut something, you would know that it was installed by someone using a tiny wrench (there's one in your kit) to screw it all the way in the machine, and then they backed it out 1/4 turn. In order to cut fabric, you should take your little wrench and unscrew it an additional 1/4 to 1/2 turn. Don't worry, you can't break it. This is also how you'll unscrew it all the way to change the blade (not that I've had to do that yet).
And while you are looking at that picture, notice that the cutting mechanism is at the bottom left. This is where it was about to start cutting my design, not in the middle of the cutting area. In order to fussy cut on your fabric, you need to pay attention to that starting point and to the "x" that appears on the screen. Basically, after you select the cut size and the "x" appears , the blade moves to where it will start and stop cutting. If you lift up you'll then see the blade. Looking at the image on the screen and using the measurements on the collar or outside of machine, you can gauge where the machine will start and stop.
I'm just saying because it took me lots of trial and error to figure that out. Of course if I had read the manual first...
So that's my final tip. Read the manual. It looks really long but in your particular language there's only 14 pages.
And just so you know, the circle, starburst, and heart shapes are all included on the design card that comes with the Slice Cutter. The butterfly design and the font that I used for lettering is included on a separate card called Urban Kid.
Again, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Slice Crafts for the wonderful cutter and to Fabric Tree for the gorgeous fabrics. Merry Christmas to me (and to you)! I have lots more projects in mind for these, so get ready for applique-orama, baby!
{oh, and I have permission to give away TWO Slice cutters in the coming months... one this month in a huge giveaway with other sponsors, and one just amongst our Sew Can She fans in January. Stay tuned!}
Happy Sewing,
