I knew once I had a Silhouette machine, there would be endless creative possibilities.   Now the Silhouette machine cuts fabric!  Using scrap material, I made my daughter a doxie (Niski!) pillow.  

Here’s how I did it. 

I hope to make my own pattern but until I figure out how to do that, I purchased a doxie shape from the Silhouette online store and sized it.  I did cut out some other shapes including an ear and some flowers for appliques as well. 

My doxie was approx. 6 x 9 inches long so using a piece of cardstock as a pattern, I cut a 6×9 piece of the heat transfer fabric interfacing.

Iron on to fabric (rough side of heat transfer interfacing paper to back side of fabric).

Cut out the 6×9 heat transfer paper fabric interfacing once it’s ironed (cooled) to the fabric.

I used my Silhouette cutting mat.  This will work best if your cutting mat isn’t very sticky (not new).  The heat transfer fabric interfacing paper backing sticks to the mat so I had to clean that off/peeling bits and pieces.  The other option would be to make sure your fabric is at least 8 inches wide going through the feed (so it doesn’t move around).  Stick the paper side to the mat, fabric side up.  I always stick to the right side.

Feed mat into the machine. (I always insert mat and vinyl on the third line from the left as the machine cuts closest to the right margin on projects shorter than 12″ unless you make adjustments in the software).

Change to the pink cutting tip. 

Send the image to the Silhouette for cutting.  My settings were 3 for speed and 33 (the highest) for thickness.

Cut image.

Unload and remove ‘negative’ fabric.

Lift up fabric doxie – instant iron on applique! How cool!

Iron fabric into place on 1 side of the right side of pillow to be sewn (or whatever you’re creating). 

Once it’s ironed on, it’s temporarily in place and ready to sew.  Sew close to the edge of the fabric applique. For rounding corners, make sure needle is down through fabric, lift foot and turn as needed. Lower foot and resume sewing. 

The back side will look like this:

Add extra iron ons for texture and depth, a button for an eye.

I got caught up in my project and didn’t photograph the remaining steps but I made a pillow cover.  Pin right sides together and sew three sides of the pillow cover.  Snip corners of fabric up to the seam. Turn right-side-out. Insert pillow and hand or machine sew the opening shut. 

Front Side:

Back Side:

So cute!  I’m not crazy about the shape of the dog (it seems a little distorted to me), but for first time test…it’s cute and my daughter loves it.

Wow!  Thank you all so much for entering and a special thanks to those of you who shared the giveaway on your blog, Facebook or Twitter.  I know how it feels to want this machine so badly you can taste it, so badly you enter every single giveaway following all of the rules, to dream about the projects you’d be able to do every day.  I want each of you to have one but Silhouette said “one”.   🙁

The winner of the Silhouette Giveaway is…#422

Sweeter Hours said… 422

Wow. This is very exciting! Thank you for offering such a great give away!
Well, I have been wanting make a growth chart for a while, also I have been wanting to make a pantry with labels. I make a lot of teeshirts by hand painting with freezer paper and this would make my life easier!