Why the Brother ScanNCut SDX225 is a great tool for quilters

I recently received the Brother ScanNCut SDX225 electronic cutting machine. With all of our recent self isolating and staying at home, I’ve had lots of time to play with this wonderful machine.

This model is part of the only series of home and hobby cutting machine with a built-in scanner. It cuts fabric and paper equally well. You can easily convert scanned designs into custom cut or draw files. Yes, you can draw designs or text on fabric or paper using the included pen set! The Brother ScanNCut SDX225 gives you the ability to add a seam allowance in ¼” increments to assist in piecing together fabric pieces for your quilts. But wait, it gets better! You can even use the included erasable pens (air soluble and water soluble) to create sewing guidelines on your designs to assure perfect placement of your stitches. You can customize designs even more by changing the shape, size, or position, or using just part of a design.

There’s even a special Thin Fabric Auto Blade and holder used to cut fabric for quilting and raw edge applique. This blade will cut thicknesses from 0.25mm – 0.5mm.

As an added bonus, the Auto Blade sensor technology automatically detects material thickness to cut precise custom and built-in patterns.

The Brother ScanNCut SDX225 has over 1300 built-in designs, including 140 quilt patterns and 17 lettering fonts. You can also create custom designs by combining built-in designs with scanned images.

You can create and edit designs quickly and easily on the 5″ LCD touch screen display. Plus, you can work with CanvasWorkspace (a free download program) that lets you work remotely on your PC, tablet, or even on your phone and then wirelessly send your cut files to the ScanNCut SDX225.

If you’re lucky enough to have a Brother embroidery machine, the Brother ScanNCut SDX225 reads most PES, PHC and PHX files directly. There’s no need to convert. Just select the applique parts you want to cut. Then, take those cut pieces over to your Brother embroidery machine and tack them down to create unique fabric items.

There are 2 positions for the built-in scanner. Position 1 (lower position) is used when scanning thin materials such as fabric or photographs. Position 2 raises the scanner glass higher to scan thicker materials and for drawing on paper or fabric. Watch this video ScanNCut DX Scanner Lever for a good explanation of this feature.

There are lots of little storage compartments for blades, pens, and other tools right inside the front cover. Everything you store in these compartments stays in place with the magnetic closures. For smooth and even mat feeding the machine has a slide tray in the back.

And the Brother ScanNCut SDX225 also has a Whisper Quiet Mechanism!

There are lots of wonderful YouTube ScanNCut videos that I’m sure you’ll enjoy watching. Two of my favorite series showing many different techniques are Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Alanda Craft.

For a good introduction to this machine, be sure to watch this video Ten Features of the ScanNCut DX SDX225 by Julie.

There’s also lots of information on the Brother website. You can download the manuals and all the pattern designs here.

I hope you’ll come back tomorrow and see how to get started using the Brother ScanNCut SDX225 to cut all the fabric shapes for this little Welcome banner.