Elmo and Fun fur, it can be done.

I wanted to try something new.  I wasn't sure it would work.  That is how a lot of my projects start out.  Since I was working on some Elmo party items, I wanted to try an Elmo shirt.  Because Elmo is a monster, I wanted him to be furry and have texture to his little body.  I found this red fun fur at the fabric store one day while I was there getting some fabric for another project.  My daughter saw it first and said, "Mommy, it looks like Elmo".  I was thinking the same thing.  I wondered could a thick, fur like fabric cut in the cricut.  I was totally ready to try it.  While I was at the fabric store, I bought some heat-n-bond ultra, this is the best stuff for cutting fabric.  When I was finally able to set a side some time to try this, I first ironed the heat-n-bond ultra to the back of the fun fur.  I placed the fabric on the sticky mat, with the heat-n-bond side down on the sticky part.  At this point, I was a little sceptical if it was going to cut.  The fur was about 1/2 inch long.  I decided to use my deep blade housing and blade, and I set it to cut 3 times using the multi-cut. The first pass I noticed that the fur was getting stuck in the blade, it was just too thick.  I had to pause the cut, remove the blade, clean out the fur that was stuck, replace the blade (without moving the housing), and re-start the cutting.  I had to do this several times, but in the end it cut the Elmo body.  There were a couple of places that it did not cut all the way through, so I had to snip it with scissors, but for the most part it cut great!!  Also for the design, I cut Elmo's eyes from white and black felt, and his nose from orange felt.  I used heat-n-bond on these pieces also.  The words "Tickle Me, I'm turning 3"  were cut from iron-on vinyl, (I love this stuff).  It was so easy after I had all the pieces cut to simply iron it to the shirt.  I am going to stitch around the image before I wash it just to make sure that it is stable.