Most of us have moved to working from home and it’s a whole lifestyle change. Being home almost all the time means we need to find things to do; and discovering new hobbies seems to be it. Most of my friends explored home baking with their airfryers; some of them went on the Keto diet and started a home fitness routine; as for me, I started sewing.
I never imagined I’d love picking up a needle and thread so much, and it’s been my “thing” for the past year to sew, and particularly, in felt. I’ve made recess pouches for my 10-year-old for school (her teacher asked why she keeps changing her pouch), a bag for my mum (she says it’s precious and only carries it to church), and a series of those Totoro “Loewe Heel” bags for myself (they were sold out so I sewed my own).
Above: Recess pouch for my kid, made in the likeness of her Animal Crossing character.
Above: Felt bag with charm for mum. Modelled after a famous bag silhouette (you know which).
Above: my own felt versions of those totoro bags.
For all of these designs, I made the patterns from pictures, printed them out, and used them as a template to cut and sew my felt (all by hand).
And then I discovered the Cricut.
Above: Cricut Maker in Champagne, $529 from lazmall
(image courtesy cricut).
It’s an electronic cutting machine that cuts intricate patterns from a variety of materials such as paper, vinyl, cloth, leather, even wood, and in the case of my home projects — felt.
Above: Cricut Maker in Champagne, $529 from lazmall
(video courtesy cricut).
I have the Cricut Maker that can not just cut, but also score, write, deboss and engrave, and it’s controlled through the Cricut app (Cricut Design Space) that you can install on a computer, iOS or Android device.
Above: “Ready to do” projects from Cricut Design Space.
Above: Example of a die-cut card project. while This one comes with a fee, there are many other free projects to select from.
My first attempt with the Cricut was to die-cut this crown (a free template in the Cricut app) from a piece of art card. It was extremely fun and satisfying to watch, and the result was very impressive.
Above: Die-cut crown from an art card.
I then decided to go straight into my felt projects. It was quite a simple process: cut my felt to size and stick it onto the “strong grip” Cricut mat, upload the template into Design Space and adjust it to the size I want, then press go.
Above: Adjusting the size of my project template. Guess what I’m making…
It’s very satisfying watching the Cricut in progress. For felt, I use the rotary blade (it’s easy to swop out the blade cartridges), and the cuts are extremely intricate and precise.
Above: The Cricut maker at work, cutting felt.
Above: The felt cut-out using my cricut maker. To cut the small holes by hand would be very tedious and the result wouldn’t be as neat.
Above: pieces of felt cut out using the cricut maker.
With all the pieces pre-cut and ready, I can get straight to sewing. Check out the final result:
Above: A mini bag i sewed by hand with felt pieces cut out using the cricut maker.
There are many more impressive ways to use the Cricut, and I’ve seen examples of kitchen tiles made in vinyl, custom images pressed onto mugs (many people turn this into an entire home business!) and my other favourite use of the Cricut — creating stickers for the kids and ironing-on fun cut-outs onto t-shirts and plain tote bags.
Check out these video examples from Cricut to get inspired.
Above: making a quilt (video courtesy cricut).
Above: making a vinyl table top (video courtesy cricut).
The Cricut Maker is available on Cricut’s official store on LazMall, priced at $529. and Follow them on instagram HERE for more ideas on what to make.
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