Recommended HTV Crafting Accessories

Congrats! You got a Cricut machine and you’re eager to get started making t-shirts, sweatshirts and all the wearable crafts! Getting the Cricut is just the first step in this fun fabric crafting adventure. Here are some recommended HTV crafting accessories that will help give you better success with your fabric wearables!

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I have had and used both my OG Cricut Air Explore 2 and a Cricut Maker for YEARS and love making t-shirts and sweatshirt gifts and personalizing fabric items for friends! Besides the machine itself, you’ll also need to understand a few tips about Heat Transfer Vinyl.

Heat Transfer Vinyl (also known as HTV or Iron On Vinyl) is a material that includes a heat activated adhesive that can be applied to all sorts of fabric materials. It comes in rolls or sheets and is available in a ton of different colors, textures and dimensions, even glitter, holographic or patterned. I love brands like Siser, which you can find at Michaels, and HTVront that I buy in large rolls for Halloween costume crafting.

Facedown and mirror – When cutting HTV, you’ll need to place the vinyl FACE DOWN on your sticky mat and make sure to choose the “mirror” setting when sending it to cut in Cricut Design Space. With HTV, the machine will cut out the design you want in a mirror effect and you’ll need to weed (aka remove) all the parts of the vinyl you DON’T want adhered to your fabric. You’ll then turn this over to place onto your fabric as HTV has a sticky carrier sheet that is used to stick to the fabric to hold the position before you heat press it.

Heat Press to Adhere – Once you have your design cut and weeded, lay on your fabric and use a teflon sheet as a press cloth before heat pressing the design with a heat press machine or iron. I used my home iron, then Cricut Easy Press machines but I was recently upgraded to HTVront’s Auto Heat Press 2 when gifted the machine from the brand. This machine is great as you can digitally select the temperature, time and pressure and it automatically pressing it down with those settings without you having to hold it. I also love the automatic settings that are set for things like my favorite HTV materials like everyday heat transfer vinyl and glitter heat transfer vinyl.

Once you have that down, here are some of my favorite HTV Fabric Crafting Accessories I use every time or often that helps give me better t-shirt crafting success:

• Replacement Fine Point Blades for your machine – If you have a Cricut, and are noticing jagged cuts for cardstock or heat transfer vinyl, it’s likely time to replace the blade. I got this knock off bulk pack of 40 blades that fit my OG Cricut Maker machine.

• Cricut Brayer – This tool gets the air bubbles out when laying your vinyl down and have better adhesion in all areas on the sticky mats. I use mine for ALL materials I add to my mats, not just vinyl.

• Heat Tape – For unique shaped fabric crafting or surfaces that aren’t as tacky, use this heat tape to hold your design before you press it. This is especially helpful on curved designs, like added designs to a hat, other materials like Siser’s Brick 600 that doesn’t have a tacky carrier sheet.

• T-shirt Guides – For t-shirt crafting, these t-shirt guides help position your designs on your fabric whether it’s a large design or a small pocket logo. This pack comes with 5 different sizes from instant to larger adult so you can limit the crooked application issues.

• Teflon Sheets – Protect your vinyl when pressing it with whatever heat press machine or home iron you’re going to use. It’s large, heat resistant and reusable so you can always have it at the ready when making more t-shirt crafts. I got this three pack of sheets and have shared it with friends as I’ve never needed more than the one sheet.