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Cutting Fake Fur
National Sewing Circle EditorsDescription
Cutting fake fur can be messy. Mary Beth Temple shares a quick tip for cutting fake fur to keep your work area clean, and to make sure you don’t accidentally give your fur pile an unwanted haircut.
If you attempt to cut the fake fur with the fur side facing up using your fabric shears, much of the fur pile gets trimmed as well, resulting in a big mess. Plus some of that fur pile that gets trimmed down might show on the right side of your project, resulting in an odd looking blunt cut in the pile.
To avoid this, Mary Beth recommends turning the fur wrong side up. Use a fabric marker to draw your cutting lines onto the fur’s backing fabric, then use a craft knife to cut only the fabric backing, not the fur pile. Mary Beth demonstrates her technique of holding the fur slightly up off the cutting mat and using the craft knife to slice through just the fabric backing.
With this method, you will avoid messy faux fur pile floating around on your cutting mat, plus get a nice clean cut on the fabric backing to avoid any odd cuts in the pile.
Get more tips for working with tricky fabric in these great videos:
Taming Tricky Fabric Class
Tips for Managing Bulky Fabric
Tips for Working with Terry Fabrics
Hi there, I'm Mary Beth Temple and I am here to talk to you about cutting fake fur, whether you're making a cosplay or a holiday ornament or you're adding a little faux luxury to the costume for the high school play, cutting fake fur can be a real mess because as you cut with normal scissors and you think you're doing the right thing, what's going to happen is these little bits of fur are going to come loose and get everywhere. So it makes a mess. And in addition, when you're trying to sew it, you've got little shortcuts coming out everywhere. So one of the things that I like to use is any kind of fabric marker that you might like. And you can trace whatever shape it is that you're trying to make, whether it's a straight line or a shaped piece, maybe you're making a teddy bear or any other kind of shaped piece. And then instead of using scissors, I'm going to use an Exacto knife or a utility knife and I'm going to cut from the back, I'm not gonna touch those fur strands at all. And if I give it a little now I'm using my cutting mat because I don't want to mark up my table. But if I give it a little bit of height, take it a little ways away. And I'm using my utility knife and essentially tracing the shape that I have cut out. What's going to happen is the backing fabric, which is what holds the fake fur together. I'm gonna cut that, but I'm not gonna cut all those little fur strands and I'm going to have a lot less of a mess and a lot neater item to sew with. So I'm just gonna go a little bit more here. Of course, this works in a straight line too. I was just doing the shape to show you that it would work in any direction. All right, let me get this little section right here. Obviously, it's really good to have the knife going away from you, not towards you in case you slip. Now, look, the piece came right out. Very little mess, very little fur coming off the edges. I have all my long lengths of fur. I don't have any kind of shortcuts that are going to get me later and now I can use this and apply it to any little part of my project that needs some fake fur on it. So once again, I'm Mary Beth Temple and I hope this little trick makes your fake fur experience a lot easier.
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