Tag Archives: Sure Cuts a Lot

Spooky

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At the store where I work we have special events to introduce new things to our customers.  In September, we will be hosting one that features embroidery projects from a company named Kimberbell.  The ladies in charge of the event decided to give each attendee a special memento to remind them of the event.  A plastic glass was selected and I was asked to “help” create the cutting files for a vinyl design to be placed on the glass.  The design that was selected is one that will be used on a project at the event.

Materials Used:

American Crafts Adhesive Vinyl (Black)

Oracal 631 Vinyl (White and Green)

Transfer Tape

Machine Used:

KNK Force  Red Blade, Passes 1, Blade Tension 1, Cutting Depth 18, Cutting Speed 15, Overcut .42

Additional Information:

Since the entire design is not visible in the photo, here is a screen shot of the design in Make the Cut.

I made liberal use of the Shadow Layer tool in MTC to bulk up the spider’s legs and the letters.   The bow was borrowed from a built in shape in Sure Cuts A Lot and bulked up also with the Shadow Layer tool.  I’ve learned that the next time I want to have some curvy or swirly lines, I can easily draw them in SCAL rather than struggling as I did this time in MTC.

Now to teach the ladies doing the event about cutting vinyl, weeding, and using transfer tape.  Only 14 more glasses to do!

Orbit Meets Fabric

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I am fortunate to have gotten to play with a new ZING ORBIT!!!  It is a great cutter and the improvements and new features make it a delight to use.  Of course, without the super manual by Sandy McCauley, I would have been lost.  Because of the nature of my job at Sew-Ciety, I have been test cutting fabrics to be used as appliques in quilting projects. The Orbit has performed flawlessly.  Any difficulties I’ve encountered have been due to the old bugaboo “Operator Error”.

Here is a sample of the testing that I have done most recently

Okay, you can ignore the large red rectangle on the upper left.  That was an additional piece of fabric that had been placed there in case my settings for a similar piece on the upper right weren’t working.

Materials Used:

Cotton Batik Fabric

Cotton Quilting Fabric

Cotton Flannel

Lite Steam-A-Seam 2

Settings:

Machine used:  KNK Zing Orbit , Blade:  Fabric Blade, Speed: 10, Blade Offset: 0.75, Height:  20 PIN

Cotton Batik Fabric:  Force:  60, Passes: 1

Cotton Quilting Fabric (Green): Force:  75,  Passes:  1

Cotton Quilting Fabric (Pink):  Force:  65,  Passes:  2

Cotton Flannel (Both colors):  Force:  70, Passes:  2

Additional Information:

This is what the fabrics looked like before I did any cutting so you can relate the settings to the fabrics.

All of the fabrics had Lite Steam-A-Seam fused to the wrong side prior to being placed on the mat.  The mat is new and the blade is new also.  I was pleased to see that the adhesive on the mat did not ‘bond’ with the Steam-A-Seam and pull the Steam-A-Seam off of the fabric after cutting.  It is necessary to be sure that the Steam-A-Seam is securely fused to the fabric before placing the fabric on the mat.

I wanted to see if it made any difference when cutting the cotton quilting fabrics (green & pink) whether I used more or less force and one or two passes.  In this instance it worked equally well.  The Cotton Batik cuts very easily and is thinner than the Cotton Quilting fabric so the blade length setting is important when cutting different types of fabric.  The Cotton Flannels are thicker and need a blade length adjustment also.

The sizes of the hearts are (smallest to largest) 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, and 1 1/4 inches, and 1 1/2″ inches.  The stars are 1 inch.  I am intrigued that the 1/4″ hearts cut so perfectly.  That’s why I had to cut more of them up by the stars.

The other part of my testing was that I was cutting from Sure Cuts A Lot which, again, I would have been floundering without the excellent information and instruction from the User Manual by Sandy.  Thanks, Sandy, for all your help!!