Print and Cut with Brother Fabric Printer and Silhouette CAMEO

Giving new meaning to 'print and cut'... I'm not sure there's ever been a more perfect duo than the Printmoda Brother Fabric Printer and Silhouette CAMEO! 

Read on for a step by step beginner project printing on Printmoda from Silhouette Studio then cutting with the CAMEO Rotary blade. 

If you haven't yet made your first print to the Brother Printmoda fabric printer, check out the first part of this tutorial here. It will take you through how to print from Silhouette Studio to the Printmoda. You should end up here...

Once you have your printed fabric sheet you'll be ready to cut with your CAMEO. 

Place the sheet of printed fabric on your Silhouette cutting mat and make sure it's firmly stuck in place.  

I would suggest leaving the fabric on the carrier sheet while cutting. 

The exception would be if you need to add something like heat and bond so you can later adhere the fabric.  If that's the case, remove the fabric from the carrier sheet before putting on your cutting mat. 

Make sure you have the cap of the Rotary blade unlocked so the blade is exposed. Place the rotary in the right carriage and lock into place. 

Silhouette CAMEO Fabric Cutting Settings

For your first fabric cutting project I want you to find a substantial single line design.  That means a design that has ONE line that goes around the entire design..like a circle or this Christmas tree. 

Rule out any designs with individual pieces, mall details, and letters or numbers. 

Scale and position the design in the work area. You can delete the fabric print if it's still in the work area (or leave it just make sure to turn off the cut line in the Send panel). 

I filled the tree with solid white just so you could more easily see it. 

Move to the Send panel and expand the Tool 2 Settings.  With the Silhouette CAMEO connected and Rotary tool in the carriage, select the design.  

Click "Rotary Cut" in the Tool 2 settings and make sure the Silhouette Rotary tool is set as the tool. 

Select the material as Fabric Thin (Cotton Print). The cut line around your design should be blue indicating Tool 2 carriage.  The cut settings should be Force 13 and speed 3-5. 

You will likely see at least one loop outside of your image (I highlighted it above the tree). That's needed so the rotary blade can turn. 

THIS is why I said it's so important to have a simple design. The more complex your design is the more loops you'll get and the more chances you have of your fabric getting chewed up. 

When you're ready you can press Send to begin cutting.  

When the cutting is finished do not unload the mat. Make sure the fabric has successfully cut through before unloading the mat. 

If it hasn't cut through, you can click Send again and the second cut will be in the exact same place as the first. 

When you're confident the fabric has successfully cut, unload the cutting mat and weed away the excess material.  

Make sure your cut design has been removed from the carrier sheet by this point. 

I used glitter HTV as a frame to hold my fabric tree in place when I pressed them both onto a tea towel. 

I love that I can print fabric at home - the possibilities for customization are unlimited.

And since I couldn't waste the inner tree I weeded out of the glitter HTV, I made a second towel too.  

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