This week I was playing again with my Cricut Maker and Cintiq 16 drawing display... Are you curious?

#carolinaasmussen #cricut #cricutmaker #cricutcreated #graphicdesign #digitalcrafting #illustrator #design #digitaldesign #cricutmade #embroidery #handembroidery #enlightenment #crafts #embroideryhoop #slowstitching #qualitytime #slowstitch #canvas #drawandcut #embroiderypattern #quotes #quoteoftheyear #handstitched #handstitching #thichnhathanh #thichnhathanhquotes #dmcembroideryfloss #aurifil #aurifilthread #auverasoie #hobbsbatting

Last Christmas I gifted myself with a Cricut maker, you can read all the "whys" on my January's post "Make the Onions Cry". And after 5 months of intensive and unusual use I still think the Cricut maker is the most amazing machine from my quilting studio (and believe me I have a lot of machines here!)

The embroidery's hoop patterns idea started with the "draw" function. Since the machine can draw, of course it will draw for me ;). And it does beautifully, mimics my sketches like my own hand on my drawing display SVG files and I can't get enough of this, it's always magical!

Ok, I like to draw free hand in the illustrator and it is pretty much how I work, and now you are maybe thinking "ok I don't work this way, this is not for me". STOP! It is for you. You can use the iPad and apple pencil with Procreate to sketch your own designs, or even work some images in Photoshop, there are so many possibilities to use an image file jpg, gif, png, bmp, dxf and my favorite svg to make it work on Cricut Design Space! (talking about this don't forget to search for the "Enlightenment Embroidery Hoop" project there, it is free)

After all my design concept is done and already in the Cricut Design Space, I choose the colors of the fine point pens for each design element and also what I it needs to be drawn or cut.

I like to use white cotton fabric, but some motive fabric could also work. For this specific project you will need a 10" square of fabric and the Cricut pink grip mat (for fabric), I also like to secure the fabric with "washi tape" into the mat, because the machine will be drawing and sometimes a little bump on the fabric can damage the project. You want to keep the fabric as flat as possible during the entire time the machine is working.

You also don't need to be worried about the pencil's color order because the machine will stop every time and "ask" you to change to the right color and guide you through all the steps until the project is done! Like... really?! Yup.

So now, GIVEAWAY TIME!!! (*only US*) Leave a comment below for a chance to win one of the 3 Enlightenment embroidery canvas with 7" hoop and the Hobbs batting circle for the fancy finishing (the thread is on you this time)! Giveaway closes on Sunday 5.31 at 10pm NYC time.

Good luck and see you here on Sunday night ;)

Giveaway CLOSED and the lucky winners are Mayra Alexandra, Sarah Porter and Shanon Pacini! Congratulations girls and I will be messaging you tomorrow to get the addresses!