How to Cut Fabric on Silhouette CAMEO without Rotary Blade

You can cut fabric with any Silhouette CAMEO or Portrait machine - including those that can't use a Silhouette Rotary blade.

In a pinch you can use almost any NEW blade to cut fabric - in any machine.
 If you have a Silhouette CAMEO and Rotary blade, follow this tutorial for how to cut fabric with Silhouette CAMEO.

What you need to cut fabric without a rotary blade 

For those without a rotary blade, keep in mind any design can be cut on fabric - but I'd avoid those with small intricate areas as the fabric will likely fray. 

How to stabilize fabric with Heat N Bond or freezer paper  

Once your design is open in Silhouette Studio you need to prepare your material. Without a rotary the fabric needs to be stabilized to cut.  You can use Terial Magic, Freezer Paper, or Heat N Bond. This tutorial will show you how to use the Heat N Bond / Freezer Paper methods.

Iron or heat press (2 seconds) a piece of Heat N Bond or Freezer paper onto the back of the fabric.

Trim the fabric down to the size of the interfacing.  If you are using Heat N Bond, peel off the white paper backing of the interfacing.  Lay the fabric piece onto the mat.

This can be done on any machine - I'm using a CAMEO 4 to demo because back in 2020 I had lent out all my older machines during the pandemic.

Silhouette Studio cut settings for fabric

From the Send panel select the material as "Fabric, Thin (Cotton)". Adjust the blade according to the recommended settings (usually a 9 for thin cotton fabric). Keep the speed pretty slow.

Which blade to use if you don't have a fabric blade

If you don't have a Silhouette fabric blade (which are no longer being manufactured anyway), you can use a NEW Black Ratchet Blade or Autoblade adjusted to the recommend settings.

After your fabric piece has cut, weed away the excess material and you have your fabric piece ready to go.

 

I used this method to cut out fabric pieces to make masks.  You can watch that part of the tutorial in this video on my youtube channel on making DIY fabric masks. 

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine!

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