Vendor Spotlight & GIVEAWAY: Slice Fabrique Cordless Fabric Cutter (2 of 2)

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Reported by Susie Ziegler

The Slice Fabrique Cordless Fabric Cutter is a digital design cutter with design cards made specifically to cut fabric. If you work with fabric you know that sometimes the intricate shapes of other digital design cards will not work well with fabric which snags when the knife turns sharply to cut funny angles. Then when you go to sew down the edges of your cutouts, you’ll want to have gentle curves and simple shapes.

The Slice Fabrique comes with a power cord, 3 blades with an adjustment wrench, a sturdy 6"x 6" tempered glass mat, a very small bottle of liquid repositionable adhesive, 3 6"x 6" fusible web sheets, a user manual, and one Applique Basics SD design card. This design card has a nice letter font, basic geometric shapes and stars, some basic leaf and tree shapes, butterflies, a nice variety of simple flowers, hears, and a few fruits.

I cannot wait to get started with this! I am particularly excited about the easy to sew letter font. I cant wait to make letter monograms in cute fabrics! So the first thing I have to do is get the repositionable adhesive goo onto the glass mat and let it dry.

I’m supposed to use a thin layer of this stuff, but it globbed out of the bottle right away.



I am not exactly sure how thin a thin layer is.


Next I have to iron on the fusible web to the back of my fabric. Fusible web is a paper backed product that when ironed, can fuse fabric to fabric. The manufacturer, Making Memories, recommends that I use their fusible webbing. I had some small fabric charm squares which, at 4 inches, are a little bit smaller than the glass mat and the squares of webbing provided in the packaging. There are only 3 little sheets of fusible webbing in the package. Be sure to pick up some more when you get your Slice Fabrique.


I ironed on a square of their fusible web and I also fused another brand of fusible web to another one of my charm squares.


I pressed my square of fabric onto my sticky glass mat. I’m going to make a monogram for a little girl I know, so I plugged in the Slice Fabrique inserted the design card and selected the letter I need.


I set it in the center of the mat and pressed the button to cut. You can choose sizes of your shape from 1 inch to 4 inches and you can cut out a shadow of your selection or a mirror of it.


It cut super fast, but uh-oh... it totally did not work. It looks like the fabric was not stuck to the mat, but I’m sure I did a good and careful job with the adhesive. I tried again with the other square and it failed again.


Perhaps the square of fabric was too small. Next I fused a larger piece of fabric that could be held in position by the Slice Fabrique as it cut. Success! I got a very good cut out of felt as well using my other brand of fusible web without any paper back.


I did get a nice shadowed monogram too, but my cuts did not always work out. And I seemed to be wasting my fabric because I needed large 6-inch squares for each cut.


I stitched up a monogrammed drawstring bag. I really love the shadowed font, and it was easy to stitch down too..

The other side has a shadowed butterfly. Cute and easy!


We contacted Making Memories about our trouble with consistent cuts. They recommended we use their Slice Repositionable Spray Adhesive. The sent some along with some larger sheets of their fusible webbing which is very thin and has a stiffer paper backing. If you are planning to try your own repositional spray adhesive, just be sure it is water soluble! You’ll need to wash your glass mat and respray often making sure each time that your fabric piece is adhered securely to the mat.

If you are purchasing the Slice Fabrique, be sure that you also pick up a bottle of Slice repositionable adhesive. It is much easier to use than the liquid adhesive, is stickier, and more effective.


Okay, so now I really went to town with my applique cutouts. I was able to get several letters cut out of one 6 inch square of fabric, as long as the letters were less than two inches. I found that it did not matter if the fabric was fabric side up or paper backing side up when I tested my cuts, as long as I was using the spray adhesive.


When the mat seems to be losing its stickiness, wash off and reapply the spray adhesive.


I used some of my new appliques to embellish these fabric containers I made:


Remember, for durability, you will need to stitch down the edges of your fused pieces.


I already had success with felt, but how about with fleece? Uh oh...


I’ve been cutting with this knife for awhile. Perhaps I should change it. This was easily done on the underside of the Slice Fabrique. Since fleece is thick, I adjusted the knife so that it could cut more deeply. Success with both felt and fleece!


I got the hang of conserving my fabric and getting more cutouts out of each square.

Here I used an unsuccessful large cutout as the base for some smaller circles. I cut two, but then the third snagged. This was an off brand of fusible webbing and it worked pretty well, but not as well as the Slice Fusible Web.


Look how great it cuts twill, corduroy, and t-shirt fabric!


Pros:

• Great small lightweight size is easy to store.
• Can be used without the cord. Holds charge for a very long time.
  
• Cuts many types of fabric easily and very quickly
• Designs are specifically for fabric applique and not papercraft which is often unsuitable.
• Easy to use right out of the box.
  

Cons:

• Liquid repositionable adhesive is unreliable and there isn't enough in the package. Be sure to use the spray.
• It is hard to know exactly where the knife will cut, so there can be fabric waste. Be sure to have extra fabric on hand just in case you misjudge your cut.
  
• I have sturdy fingernails so I don't need a spatula to remove the cutouts from the sticky glass mat. You may need to use a spatula.

I am most excited about the happy fabric banner I made for all the spring holidays. If you can believe it, I started out trying to make it suitable for male or female, but it went all girly pretty quickly. Rick-rack and flowers have a way of doing that.

I'm planning to use my Slice Fabrique to make more banners and monograms. I might try embellishing some kids clothes too. The possibilities are endless!

GIVEAWAY!
The great folks at Making Memories are giving away the newest member to the Slice Family, the Slice Fabrique, to one lucky reader. Just answer the any of the following questions in the comment section of this article on this blog to be entered:

Have you tried the Slice Fabrique yet? What do you love about it? If not, what do you use to cut fabric shapes now and what do you love/hate about it?

Thanks for sharing your opinions, we love to hear what YOU think!

You have until Monday, April 18th at 6pm CST to leave your comment.

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