Cutting out felt the easy way…using Freezer Paper
Felt is fabulous to work with, it comes in such a great range of colours and ranges from the 100% acrylic to 100% wool and several versions in between. Lovely, just lovely
One of the great things about felt is that there are no frayed edges when cut which makes it very easy to handle. The one problem you can have however is that some types of felt, more frequently cheaper felts and ones with high acrylic content, are less dense. By dense, I mean that the fibres are not as closely ‘felted’ together and the structure is more loose. This means that there is a lot more ‘give’. Having give in a material is great in come circumstances, but when you are trying to cut out small , accurate/precise shapes, that extra give is a bit of a pain! Sometimes having accurately cut out pieces is really important to give definition to your work.
One great way of getting a really accurate pattern pieces is using Reynolds Freezer Paper. Freezer Paper is something that was originally designed for, guess what? wrapping food for the freezer! Some bright spark realised that it could be used in crafting and as a community we are all grateful for this discovery!
So here I have written down a quick tutorial on how to cut out felt shapes using Freezer Paper….you will be cutting out fabulously neat felt shapes in no time!
How to Cut out Felt Using Freezer Paper
So first up, what is Freezer Paper?
Well, it’s a thick paper that is like untreated plain paper on one side and glossy/’plasticy’ on the other. It’s the glossy side that does the magic! When it is heated gently the ‘glossyness’ melts making it act like a temporary glue.
Step 1
Using a pen or pencil trace the reverse (flip side) of your pattern pieces onto the paper side (rather than the ‘plastic’ side) of a piece of freezer paper. Ensure that you DO NOT use a heat erasable pen as you’ll be using an iron in the next step!
Trim away some of the excess freezer paper, but no need to cut on the line at this point.
Step 2
Place the freezer paper onto the wrong side* of your felt. Set your iron to a heat setting that is appropriate for your type of felt. Wool felt will withstand a higher heat setting than acrylic felt.
DO NOT USE STEAM…due to the nature of the freezer paper the steam will bounce right off the paper and you could burn yourself!
If you are finding that the paper is not adhering to your felt you might need to slightly increase the heat setting BUT make sure that you use a pressing cloth to reduce the risk of you melting or scorching your felt!
*more often than not there is no wrong side to felt, but it’s worth mentioning just in case you have a printed felt, or one side looks better than the other!
Step 3
Using a small sharp pair of scissors cut around the pattern, along your drawn lines. I like to cut using just part of the blade…I don’t cut right to the tip so the blades are fully closed. I find that this gives me more control. I tend to keep my scissors relatively still and move the felt shape whilst cutting.
Step 4
Peel off the freezer paper, turn your felt over, et voila! you have a lovely accurate piece of felt ready to use!
The great news is that the freezer paper templates can be used several times over.
So there you are a lovely and simple way of cutting out felt shapes with minimal fuss and maximum accuracy!
(unless you are really rubbish at cutting out)
Some great patterns using felt
Time to practise your skills with some cute patterns featuring felt! All of the patterns are available as pdf downloads so you can get sewing straight away.
-
Christmas Friends Finger Puppets
£3.50Add a little magic to Christmas by making a set of these Christmas Friends. This Christmas Friends pdf sewing pattern includes patterns for a Jolly Santa, a Snowman, a Gingerbread Man, an Angel and a Reindeer with a rather red nose!
-
Woodland Friends Finger Puppets
£3.50This set of Woodland Friends includes patterns for a Friendly Fairy, a Gnome, a Bunny, a Hedgehog and a Mouse
-
Halloween Friends Finger Puppets
£3.50This Halloween Friends pdf sewing pattern includes patterns for a Bat, a (not so scary) Witch, a Ghost, a Pumpkin and a super sweet Skeleton.
-
Bear Hand Puppet Pattern
£3.00This Felt Bear Hand Puppet is an essential character for your next puppet show! It’s also just wonderful for bringing story time to life.
Simple to make from small amounts of felt and some basic hand stitches.
There is a video class for this Bear Hand Puppet that you can watch as part of the Rebecca Page Summer Camp. You can watch during w/c 12th July 2021 or you can buy an access pass after the event to watch all of the classes in your own time.
This listing is purely for the templates to cut out the shapes for the Felt Bear Hand Puppet. There are no making instructions included.
Great idea. I am going to use that technique to cut out my puppets. Thank you.
Would you believe I’m sitting here in Cape Town we don’t have freezer paper(I don’t think) so as I have a friend visiting at the end of the month from UK and I’ve asked her to bring me a roll…… love your news letter and would you believe am making felt Christmas tree decorations in my spare time ( whilst watching the cricket) plus other felt related toys.
Gillian
Lovely to hear from you Gillian and I’m glad you like the newsletter 🙂 Freezer paper isn’t that easy to get in UK (well not in comparison to the USA where you can buy it at the butchers!). I get mine either from Hobby Craft or via Amazon.
I was working on a Christmas project but ran out of time to get it done. I am seriously considering finishing it some time soon as I’m likely to put it off till next Christmas or I’ll forget about it completely.
Pingback:New: Mouse Finger Puppet Kit | Little Black Duck
I was just searching the web for freezer paper, as I wondered what it might be and realised I can’ t get it here. On my search I have found a really good idea on a German page how to make some kind of freezer paper yourself. Seems many people face the same problem .. 😉
You should try to get hold of food wrap/cling film/cling wrap or however you are calling “Frischhaltefolie” in English (this very thin transparent food wrap foil/film). Just print out your shapes mirrored on normal paper, turn it upside down and place that foil (slightly bigger than the page or the shape) onto the backside of your print. Place baking paper over it and iron over it with low heat till the foil gets stuck on the paper. That’s it. From here you can proceed with the above tutorial by placing this mask on your fabric/felt etc. by carefully ironing it onto it with the foil facing the backside of your fabric or piece of felt (don’ t forget the baking paper in order to secure your iron – I always use baking paper underneath as well, in order to secure my ironing board 😉 ).
(By the way … using adhesive book wrapping film on fabric placing some baking paper above and underneath these 2 layers and ironing it together makes nice kind of waterproof material for sewing …. 😉 )
Wow, those are some great tips Steffi, thanks for sharing. It can be tricky to get freezer paper in the UK, but I am seeing it in more and more places. We can now buy it in most Hobby Craft stores, quilting shops and ebay 🙂
Well, Ebay is a good solution anywhere I think as are online stores altogether. In fact, I often have to get my stuff online. I’m living in Latvia and here such things are either not available or in case available at all normally too costly. Such “do-it-yourself” tipps are a good solution when you want to save money and time. These things are normally at hand, easy and effective and cost you nothing…and you can go for your project straight away. 🙂
Nothing worse than waiting for supplies in order to start, or even finish a project. As the saying goes ‘necessity is the mother of invention’!