First steps to applique with the ScanNCut2

This week on QUILTsocial, not only do I get to keep playing with THE amazing Dream Machine 2 from Brother, BUT I also get to experiment with the Brother ScanNCut2 cutting machine!! I’ve been wanting to try one of these cutters ever since I saw them in the Brother booth at a quilt show last spring, so I was super excited when they offered to loan me one for a few weeks.

The Brother ScanNCut2 cutting machine with a built-in scanner has fantastic features that will help take your cutting and crafting to a whole new level. It comes with 631 built-in designs, has a large, 4.85″ color touch screen display for easier editing AND a 300 DPI built-in scanner to allow you to create your own cut files.

The ScanNCut2 has lots of new features compared to the original ScanNCut. It has a 30% larger touchscreen, lots of new built-in designs and fonts, a longer scanning and cutting area AND is able to read applique embroidery designs from THE Dream Machine 2! Check out this Brother video that shows all of the amazing new features:

Let’s try it out!

The first step to viewing and selecting images is to select the “pattern” button on the opening screen.

Next, you’ll select the group from the second screen on the ScanNCut2. As you can see there are basic geometric shapes, fun shapes like flowers and animals, popular words, borders and different fonts that you can choose from.

I selected the flowers/present icon.

Next, select a subgroup of images on the third screen of the ScanNCut2. As you can see the types of images available range from astronomy, foods, and animals to clothing, vehicles and frames. I want to see what animal images are available so I selected the dog/butterfly icon.

There are MANY different animal shapes to choose from. As you can see there are quite a few sea creature images – I’m starting to get an idea of what to do for this week’s project!!

To select a specific image, you just press that icon on the screen. This new screen then appears and here you can adjust the size of the image by pressing the + and – buttons on the touchscreen. I decided to make all of my sea creatures approximately 5″ tall so that I can easily make blocks out of them.

You set the image onto the design screen by pressing the set button on the ScanNCut2.

Tomorrow I’ll cut some sea creature shapes using the ScanNCut2 from Brother. I think I’ll have lots of fun with this little toy and may not want to send it back!