Laminates Session 4: Laminate Cutting Tips

Let's talk about the best ways for cutting laminates. Now we're gonna use some of the pattern pieces in this section so that you can cut them out. If you haven't downloaded the PDF that goes along with this class, hit pause, go print those out now. Cut them out and bring them right back 'cause we're gonna use some of those now. The first one we're gonna cut is the vinyl. Now the hardest part about cutting vinyl is that it's clear and it's difficult to see. So you can see here I have my vinyl, but I still have the piece of paper that backs it on here. Now if you can see right down here, there is a little bit of my paper that hasn't quite met up with the edge of my vinyl right there. So I am just gonna simply slide my vinyl up so that I can make sure that the edge of my paper is right on the edge of my vinyl just like that. Because I'm gonna have a hard time seeing where the edge is, this is going to be extremely helpful. So now I'm gonna take this whole piece and I'm just gonna bring it down like this, and I'm gonna line it up on one of the lines on my cutting mat. So now because the paper lines up with the edge, I can see it perfectly. Now I'm just gonna cut some of this off using my rotary cutter so that you can see how this works and so I have a smaller piece to work with. I have a ruler here. Now the thing you have to remember when you're cutting vinyl is you have to very carefully... I like to lay my edge down like this first along the line where I'm going to cut. Because once it's laying flat, you cannot move it left or right. See that, it will not move. It is stuck to that vinyl. So if you need to move it, I'm a little off here, I have to lift the whole thing up, and then pivot, and then lower it. So you don't wanna slide it or else it'll slide the whole thing around on your cutting mat. So now I'm just going to use my blade, and we're just going to cut a little piece of this off just like that. Now if you were gonna continue to use your cutting mat, you could turn this and you could line this piece up right here on a nice edge like this. And then you could cut your pieces this way. Because you have the paper under there, it makes it very easy to see. Now for this project, we are going to use a pattern piece. So this lining piece it says cut to from vinyl. Now by the way, this piece that I'm using here is just a copy of the pattern pieces that you've printed out. And they're a little bit thinner because I like to copy my patterns on to exam table paper. You can buy it on the internet, and it makes a great way to make your pattern pieces or copy pattern pieces. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to just put this right on the edge here, and then I'll scoot it down and put it on an edge here. I could attempt to pin this whole thing which would be okay. But that makes things a little bit difficult because you saw what happened in the previous demonstration when I tried to put a pin through oilcloth. Plus everything kind of moves around, and you have three layers here, and everything is slippery. So this is a nice, straight piece, so I'm just gonna cheat. And I'm going to very carefully line this up right on the edge of my pattern piece. And then I'm just gonna slide this up like that. I'm gonna move this out of the way. Now I have one more piece to cut. So I'm gonna turn it this way. I'm going to lay my ruler right along the edge of my pattern piece just like this. And then I'm gonna cut. And I'll move this piece. Look how difficult that is to see on there. So now I have one of my pieces that is exactly the same size as my pattern piece. And I just have to cut one more, and then I'll be ready. So let's talk about tips for cutting the oilcloth. I'm gonna go ahead and roll my oilcloth out here. And I need to cut one backing from this oilcloth. We're gonna use the backing pattern. Now again you could do the same thing that I do here by just kind of setting it in a corner and using your ruler to cut it out. If you're making multiples of these, sometimes it's nice to... If you're gonna make three or four, to trace all of them on the back. That way you can kind of play Tetris and fit the smaller pieces in the little scraps. So what you can do with these guys is if you just use a pen, you can draw right along the edge. I have a pen, and I am just going to kind of scribble right along the edge of my piece like this. I'm gonna go ahead and use my pins as a pattern weight here. Now again, since it's so difficult to pin through all of these layers while keeping everything flat, you can use either a pen. I'm using a pen here so that you can see it, but you can also use a pencil or a chalk pencil. Pretty much any tool will draw extremely nicely on the back of oilcloth. So there's my pattern piece like this. This is what you would want to do on the back if you don't have a rotary cutter because then you can just take your scissors and cut your pattern piece out. Now look how easy this oilcloth cuts. It looks like and feels like it might be difficult to cut out because it is fairly thick. And a lot of people feel like because it's very thick, it's also a little bit difficult to sew with. But you will be surprised, and you can see my scissors are just going right through this. And now I have my piece for my backing. So let's set this guy aside. And the last one we want to do is the laminated. Now the laminated... I'm just gonna turn it over on the backside like this. Now the great thing about laminated is that you can use your pins. Now the laminated will show pinholes, okay? So when you sew it, it is going to puncture, the needle is going to puncture the laminated stuff, and it's gonna show your pin holes. So if you'll notice, I am pinning around the edges. Remember how when we sew, we have a seam allowance? All of these puncture marks are going to be hidden by the seam allowance. So my recommendation is not to put pins right in the middle here which we tend to sometimes do if our projects are really big. So definitely stick to the edges. And then you can simply use your scissors to go around this. Or if you're like me and you want to be brave, you can always just carefully free hand with your rotary cutter. Or you can even use your ruler once this is pinned into place so that you can get your pieces cut out very nicely. And you'll notice that this one acts... This one's actually more difficult to cut than the other ones. The other ones are nice and stiff, so they kind of stay flat. This guy, he moves around a little bit, and it lifts as you're cutting him. So this one acts more like a regular fabric which is nice because then you can just use your pins, and there's nothing fancy there. All right, so we have a few more pieces for each project to cut out. So I'm gonna do that and I'll meet you right back here so we can assemble the projects.