Sample Book & Cricut Fabric Cutting Project

Intention

Write about the big ideas behind your project? What are the goals? Why did you make it? What are your motivations?

In the past I’ve used patterns from JoAnn Fabrics, to make shirts, dresses and skirts and the part I have always liked the least is cutting out the fabric.

My project was to find more uses for the Cricut Maker that I had recently purchased.  I wanted to see if this would be easier, and also save time. 

Process

Outline your approach to the project? What ideas did you generate and how did you refine or reject them? What did you research and explore? what were the design choices? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them?

After using the Cricut Maker in class during Week 3, I decided that I would like to explore the idea of using it to cut fabric at home. Especially because I had less than ideal results when cutting a more intricate piece in class. 

Product

Detail what you created. What methods or techniques did you use? What tools and technologies were involved? Include images, code or video.

After looking through various Cricut patterns in the Cricut Design Space, I decided to make a cosmetics bag with an accompanying set of instructions by Simplicity. I also purchased two fabrics with complimentary colors and patterns. Since I had extra fabric, I decided to make two at once. 

Step 1: Cut 12"x8" and 12"x18" pieces of fabric that would fit on the Cricut mats.

Step 2: Use the Cricut Design Space to "Make It" and cut out the pieces for the cosmetics bag. Cricut has a washable marker for marking fabrics. This is what was used, along with the rotary blade to cut out the pieces. 

Step 4: Zipper and belting. This was by far the most difficult part of the whole process. Despite the fact that I was using a heavy duty machine and a heavy duty needle, I still had issues due to the thickness of the materials and a needle breaking at another point. 

Step 5: Turn out seams and press.

Though Cricut says that this is an intermediate level project that takes 1-2 hours. I spent about 5 hours in total working on this. 

Reflection

Reflect on the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?

The most difficult part of this process was sewing through the multiple layers. I actually am still not done with this project as I need to go back to JoAnn Fabrics and get some more material. I say this because there are parts of the project that I want to change, and for that I will be ripping out some of my stitching. I want this project to be functional and in my opinion, I shouldn't need to use 5 layers of cotton belting to get the desired effect, so I'm going to cut that down and make some modifications there. 

Also, in the future, if I use the Cricut to cut out fabric, it will need to be a fabric with a smaller pattern, or a fabric that is a solid print. Othwerise, it's too time consuming to figure out how to place larger pieces on Cricut mats so that they will yield two identically printed pieces. 

Sample Book

Include some photos of your sample book. 

Week One Samples: Hand stitching and machine stitching. 

Week Three Samples: Darts and laser cut piece.