Girl Charlee + Cricut :: The Maker Meets Knit Fabrics

Welcome to our first post about the wonders of the new Cricut Maker!  We are working with the fabulous team at Cricut to test out this amazing new machine to see what it can do with our favorite fabrics, KNITS!!!  For this post we decided to try cutting out some simple template shapes from our different knit substrates to see a) how the rotary cutter handles them and b) how the sticky cutting mats hold up and c) figure out what settings are best with what fabric.  Here we go!

We started by setting up the Cricut Design Space with some easy shapes, a heart, a circle, and our initials GC.

Click the happy little green "Make It" button in the top right to send your project to be sorted into mats.  The Maker is genius at how it automatically moves the elements around on the mat to ensure you use the least amount of materials for your project.

** VERY IMPORTANT **

If you are using lettering in your designs that you will be cutting on the back side of a fabric or material (will show you that below) you must remember to turn on the mirror option to flip the lettering, otherwise, the lettering will be backward!  I learned this the hard way, so just remember if working on the backside of any fabric or material to MIRROR.

We cut 9" x 9" fabric swatches of our most popular knits to test how the Cricut can handle cutting them.  We tested our vegan leather, cotton jersey blend, stretch lace, Hacci sweater, double brushed spandex, cotton spandex solid, cotton spandex blend, and solid french terry spandex knit fabrics. 

Applying the different fabrics to the sticky cutting mat was surprisingly easy!  There were no bubbles and lining it up straight was not too challenging.  We were concerned with the more stretchy knits being difficult to place correctly, but the Fabric Grip mat worked for all our substrates while not being too sticky, or not sticky enough.

Vegan leather and french terry knits cut best with the right side stuck down as it made it easier to apply, and especially to remove the french terry due to the looped pile on the back side.  We recommend that you put any fabric that has a looser weave wrong side (sweatshirt/fleece, sweater knits, leather, etc) right side down to cut.  Remember when cutting any material right side down to MIRROR!

For the cut settings, we used the pre-programmed materials settings for Jersey and they worked perfectly for all the different fabrics we tested.  

Material	Cut Pressure	Multicut	Blade Type
Jersey	1520	Off	Rotary Blade

You can find all the materials settings for the Maker here.

For cutting fabric with a stabilizer use these settings:

Material	Housing & Blade	Speed	Pressure	Blade Depth	Multi-Cut	Tips
Fabric: 0.023’’/0.58mm thick	Deep Cut	3 – Med	4 – High	5	1	Use an iron-on stabilizer with the fabric.

For all the different fabrics that we tested, we achieved nice clean cuts and the rotary blade handled each substrate with ease and NO STRETCHING (which is what we really wanted to test with knits)!  We also found the mat to be very durable and it kept its stickiness even after multiple cuts of knits that left some fuzz after cutting.  This is what our mat looked like, and you can see it has plenty of life left.

We searched online for the best methods to clean the sticky mat and tried alcohol-free wipes with great success!  This mat appears to be undamaged and sticky enough to use for more projects, so a good value for your money.

We hope you enjoy this sponsored post with our true experience and opinions of the awesome Cricut Maker!  Watch our blog for more Cricut tutorials with our knit fabrics coming soon :)

*Please note that this post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

Happy Sewing!
~ Heather & The Girl Charlee Team