Use your GF to cut and place appliques!

Made on a Glowforge
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I recently made a bag that had a lot of appliques. I have used my GF to cut felt before but this time I had the idea to lightly score placement marks for all the pieces!

I started by scoring the bag front. It’s a decor weight cotton sateen fabric. Then I fused Heat N Bond to the back of various felt colours and cut out all the appliques. It was SO much easier to place all the pieces with the scored lines, rather than trying to transfer all the marks using tailor’s chalk and a tailor’s wheel.

I almost forgot to mention…in order to keep the fabric from blowing around, I lightly sprayed a piece of MDF with Krylon Easy Tack and stuck the fabric to that. Works like a charm. I used this method when cutting paper in my GF as well.

Edited to add: If you are interested in making this bag, it’s a free pattern that I found here Freebie Friday! The Boom Box Bag – Sew Desu Ne?

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I love the bag! Don’t be a stranger. Your projects are always inspiring.

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Aw thanks! I’ve been doing a lot of sewing lately. But I will try to post more.

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Love the walkman look to the bag! I adore scoring/cutting felt, it just melts so beautifully.

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The light scoring to accurately mark an area is an under-appreciated workflow. This comment comes from experience before digital manipulation and CNC.

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Marvelous project! It was a great idea to do the scoring, especially with such a complex design (very cute one!).

Somebody gave me a stack of wool felt squares—I ought to make something out of them. It will likely be stinky though.

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That turned out great! What a fun design!

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Yes the acrylic felt is very easy. Wool felt is very stinky :slight_smile:

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Yes. Wool felt is lovely but very stinky to cut!

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This turned out great. Scoring for placement helps so much!!

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Thank you for sharing! A whole new area of my brain just expanded: thoughts, ideas, applications.

I may need to go do some shopping now…

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I love to enable crafting purchases :smiley:

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You can enable me all you want! I mostly need the money to do all the projects I want to do - feel free to enable me that way! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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Amazing work! And, I just learned of a new adhesive I do not presenly have, and will need to add to the “collection” :slight_smile:

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There is Heat N Bond Lite, which is good if you want to/need to sew through the applique, and Heat N Bond Ultra Hold…which is what I used on these.

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Even more adhesive options! Thank you :slight_smile:

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We have been using our GF to cut fabric for applique quilting, also using HeatNBond Lite, with a light enough setting to cut through the fabric and mostly through the HeatNBond. We can pull the parts apart easily and only have to secure the edges with painters tape. The last time we did this, I had to make two passes with the laser which made all of the pieces loose. It was a simple design and nothing moved, that time. I like your idea of using lite spray adhesive on MDF. How thick a slab of MDF do you use, and how many times can you reuse the MDF? My wife’s quilts often have a large number of applique parts. Using the MDF over and over would help, especially if the adhesive did not need to be reapplied to often. Beautiful project, thank you for sharing.

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I use a 1/8"/3mm size piece. The previous piece I had been using, I used for about 4 years. When one side got a little too chewed up, I flipped it over to the other side and used that one. After 4 years I finally grabbed a new piece. I just reapply the Easy Tack whenever it seems like it’s not sticking things down easily anymore. You just need to make sure you account for the board when you set your material height.

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I use my board the same way. I’ve cut hundreds and hundreds of my business cards, hanging tags, etc., out of posterboard on them, and although the grooves are getting a little deep (think a good engrave!) from going over the same place over and over, it hasn’t interfered with cutting on it. I just reapply the EasyTack when it stops working as well.

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