Banner with Accuquilt and Cricut

I think the snow is making me go nuts with the crafting. This time, it's a banner for when I inevitably try to venture into shows of sorts. At least that's the plan. Until then, it's likely to hang on the bookshelves, where I think it will look amazing!

Alright, time for the step by step, a review, a link, and a little disappointment (but only for me). 

The plan was to cut the pennant shapes from fabric with my Accuquilt Go, make it double sided with heat-n-bond, and then use the cricut to make letters. Oh and the eventual plan is to tie it all together with ribbon that's sewn to the top, but I didn't bother to take that step yet. Besides, it's not the hard part. 

So, I measured the pennant die roughly and folded my fabric so that I would take a long strip off the side. Then I folded that strip on top of the die so that it now had 6 layers. The die has 2 pennants/cut on it, so that will make 12 pennants. I rolled it through the accuquilt and got much better at turning that crank. I don't know if I've just gotten more used to the power it requires behind it or if it's actually getting easier.

Static cling! Even with sliding!

Ah, a nice little pile of isosceles triangles (which is actually what the die is called)! Cut out of this fabric, they look like cake! Now, they won't be stiff enough on their own, so we're gonna need to do that again with another fabric (or the same if you so choose). 

Once you get those cut, you'll need to put heat-n-bond on each of them (sort of) to bind them together. BUT, I will say, this would have been MUCH easier to do beforehand (and quicker) before I cut. At least, I think it would). The heat-n-bond actually cut slightly larger than the fabric, which is odd. I cut the heat-n-bond in the accuquilt. This provided some issues, like the filmy portions sticking together where I folded it. If my momma taught me anything it's that there is a reason for long fingernails! (And it's not just to cut bulletin board paper.)

So, with 3 pieces per pennant, I went to my iron. Heat-n-bond has 2 sides to it. One is filmy and kind of dot like. You will understand that much more with it in your hand. You can feel dots, is what I'm saying.  You'll want to (with the paper still on), iron one fabric to it, wrong side to filmy side. It doesn't take a lot.  And the heat-n-bond should come with directions. 

Next, remove the paper backing and do the same thing with the other piece of fabric. You can see how it cut a little larger here. 

Now you have 2-sided fabric!!

(BTW, this is a great trick for embroidery when you don't have an embroidery machine. When you want to do that, make sure to draw your design on the paper backing, then iron it on the fabric that will be the design, peel off the backing and iron it in place on the garment/quilt. You can either leave it as is or satin stitch around it. )

A look towards what we're going for. Note, since these are double sided, the opposite should appear from behind. I can't decide if I want to put text on the back side as well. Decisions! So that concludes the fabricy portion! On to the cricut!

This is a cricut. Mine is referred to as a "Baby Bug" by those in the cricut community. BTW, that community is HUGE. I love it as much as I love my accuquilt and it's got me seriously reconsidering scrapbooking. It's meant mostly for paper but it can cut a multitude of other things. Like FELT! Ahhhh!

So based on this tutorial over at Joy's Life, I decided to go with adhesive backed felt for my letters. So, as suggested, I pulled the backing off, stuck it to the mat (and it does stick better than anything else, even on an old mat, so that's good) and use multicut: 2, speed: 2, pressure: 5 and blade: 6 with the deep cut blade. CHECK. 

Load, cut and unload. And this is where the disappointment came in. Where it wasn't cut, it did pull up fairly easily. But the S that I cut stretched to the point of being unusable. And the T and I stretched a good bit when pulling them off the mat, though they didn't pull when I pulled the negative felt off. 

I know that she cut things bigger, and I think that would have helped. I'm gonna guess she's got a scrapper, which probably also would have helped. And it's possible her felt was thicker. Lots of maybes. I made it work and I'll try it again, but I'm also thinking of doing simpler letters, more heat-n-bond'd fabric, and to do it paper backing up. 

So here's the finished product (sort of, this is really just half because I ran out of heat-n-bond!). What do you think? 

I used the storybook cartridge for the letters. This is the same cartridge that Joy used, but her letters weren't so skinny. Maybe if I do them as shadows or blackout, they would be better.

EDIT: Here it is all hung up: