Brother have always been renowned for making pretty good sewing and embroidery machines (I should know, I bought one to make my costume and love it!) and have branched out in the hobby market with their ScanNCut range.  Being a (rather amateur) craft-person, I was excited to try it out.

The ScanNCut machine is an electronic cutting machine with a built-in 300dpi scanner and enables the user to scan in their own image as a pattern and then have the machine cut the pattern out on fabric, paper, or cardboard at the touch of a few buttons, in addition to having hundreds of built-in patterns in the machine to choose from.  We got a hold of the CM550DX and it comes with a whole range of accessories to get you started including two different types of blades, marker pens (you can switch the blades out for the markers and draw patterns or seam allowances onto fabric), spare cutting mats, contact-paper and a number of project books.  It looks like a pretty desktop inkjet printer, and sounds a bit like one, too.

The Scanning Function

Scanning your pattern is a breeze and the built-in 9.4cm touch-screen, albeit a little small, is bright and clear. Loading the mat and material is easy and there are no issues with it feeding unevenly as the the machine indicates when the mat has not been loaded correctly.  There is ample storage to store a number of custom patterns for later use, or patterns can be scanned and exported to USB.

What’s really cool is that when you bring up a pattern, you can then scan the material to be cut and displayed on the screen, allowing the user to then position the pattern to ensure that it lines up with your material properly.  Pattern lines can also be edited and removed, and seam allowances can be added if you’re cutting fabric that requires piecing together.  The width of the scanning/cutting area is quite ample at 29.7cm.

Being able to edit the lines is handy, otherwise I would have had a spidey mask in a hundred pieces

There is one beef that I have with the built-in software however, and it’s that there is no “undo” function – there were a couple of times where I had accidentally erased a line and had to completely start over! It would also be nice to be able to edit your pattern while zoomed in.  To get the most out of the scanner, I would recommend using images with clear lines, preferably in black and white.

The Cutting Function

ou can scan in the fabric and align your pattern over the top of it, getting the most out of your material and taking the guesswork out of alignment

There are two different cutting blades that are housed in adjustable blade holders to suit the material being cut.  The thicker the material, the more the blade needs to be extended. Getting to the cutting part is a combination of following Brother’s guidelines on what cutting mat/blade/blade pressure combo relative to the material you are using, and a bit of trial and error to ensure that your material doesn’t snag or you don’t cut through the cutting mat.  Thankfully, there is a test function that will make a series of tiny cuts in your material to ensure you get the blade depth and pressure right.  It also helps to read the manual.  I decided to skip the part about applying contact paper to my fabric before cutting because I didn’t think I would need it and ended up making a big mess of the felt Spiderman mask I was trying to cut out. There are loads of things this machine can do and it pays to just take some time out to read through the manual and not rush in like a big impatient doofus like I did.

Fail first attempt and successful second attempt (a.k.a. not following the instructions vs actually following the instructions)

My second attempt with contact paper on the back proved to be much more successful and I was surprised at how cleanly the machine cut the felt, and then I kinda got mad because I was wondering where this machine was two years ago when I decided to make a patchwork skirt for the family christmas tree.  It would have taken a lot of the heartache out of dealing with slightly un-square fabric squares. I then got actually really excited at the notion of making some stencils of Jack-Kirby-style superheroes, but haven’t had a chance to rustle up some card stock to give it a whirl.

The ScanNCut makes a great addition to the tools of the intermediate to advanced crafter. I probably wouldn’t recommend the ScanNCut to the novice hobbyist or sewer, as it does require a bit of fabric know-how in conjunction with using the machine