It’s important to know how to clean your Cricut pink mat. Learn how to take care of this mat, clean it properly, and help keep it sticky for a long time to come.
With the release of the Cricut Maker, Cricut also gave us a new cutting mat — the pink FabricGrip mat. The Cricut Maker is purpose-built for cutting fabric (among hundreds of other materials) and the fabric mat is essential for getting perfect fabric cuts.
But how do you keep your mat clean? People are already finding it harder to keep their pink mats clean, so I wanted to write a post about everything I’ve learned about my mat. First, I want you to throw out everything you know about cleaning Cricut mats. This mat is different. After using my pink mats and chatting with my friends who are using them as well, we’ve realized they’re definitely more finicky than the other three mats.
Don’t Use Your Scraper
First and foremost, put down the scraper! The adhesive on the pink mat is different than the other three mats and you can scrape it right off the mat. Read ahead for what you should do instead.
Keep Your Hands Off
The adhesive on the Cricut pink mat is more delicate than on the other mats. The oils in your fingers quickly break down the adhesive in the mat, causing it to lose its stick. Just be cautious with your mat and try to avoid touching the adhesive if possible. You can use a brayer to help adhere your fabric to your mat if that helps (don’t press hard, just enough to adhere the fabric to the mat). Use tweezers to pick up your pieces off the mat so that you keep your fingers away from the adhesive. Don’t try and pick loose threads off the mat either — if you really must pick, use the tweezers.
Threads Don’t Matter
Speaking of threads, if you’re cutting fabric you’ll notice that you end up with a lot of threads on your mat. Leave them. We’re conditioned to having super clean mats because any little bump when cutting paper or vinyl can be detrimental to a project. The rotary blade, however, is its own beast. It cuts right through loose threads if you put the fabric over it — they won’t ruin your cuts at all.
Transfer Tape
If the threads are really bugging you or are noticing they are affecting your cuts, then you can use a piece of transfer tape to pull up the loose threads and other debris. Just put it sticky side down and peel it up. People have found this to be hit or miss, so use this tip with caution and as a last resort.
Tips for Felt
If you’re cutting felt on your Cricut Maker (which you definitely want to do — it cuts it beautifully), you have a couple options that will help keep you from destroying your pink mat with fuzz.
First, you don’t actually have to use your pink mat. I have been using older green mats that still have some stick to cut felt and that works just fine. Yes, the fibers stick but I’d rather gunk up my old mats than gunk up my pink mat. I’m saving that for fabric.
You can also back your felt in transfer tape and stick that to the mat. I haven’t done this myself, but people have been having good luck with this. Just peel it off after the cut! The downside to this is that you’re using transfer tape for every cut — could get expensive depending on what you’re cutting!
Pushing the Mat Past its Limits
The Cricut pink mat has limits. If you are trying to do a lot of intricate cutting with the rotary blade, you may notice that the mat actually starts peeling. The rotary blade isn’t really meant to cut a circle smaller than 3/4″. If you cut smaller circles than that, I believe you’re putting even more pressure on the blade and mat and it’s not designed to handle that kind of pressure and you’ll start to see your mat peel.
Do NOT Re-stick Your Mat
There are a ton of tutorials out there to re-stick your Cricut mats. These tutorials involve water, baby wipes, GooGone, spray adhesive, painter’s tape, prayers, tears of unicorns, and any other number of things. Like I said above, the pink mat’s adhesive is totally different than the adhesive on the other mats and you will ruin your mat. The adhesive on the pink mat is designed to hold the fabric but release it easily. If I ever discover a way to re-stick this mat, I’ll definitely come back here and update this post! It’s better to take care of your mat using the above tips rather than try and restore a totally destroyed mat.
If you’ve been frustrated trying to keep your pink mat clean, I hope these tips have helped. If you have anything to add, please let me know in the comments and I can update this post!
Comments & Reviews
Jill says
Omg how can I thank you for all this info. I was a little ambitious and tried for my first piece the intricate dragonfly on black material that I backed with fusible web ( which I read you could do). What a mess. The cuts were so close together getting them off the mat was terrible. A bundle of a mess. But the mat was a mess. The cleaner from the dollar store worked perfect. Thanks again from my heart!!!!!!
T says
I just upgraded to the Maker specifically to cut fabric. I’ve had 2 brand new pink fabric mats. Used brayer and tweezers as suggested—I cannot get even a basic cotton to stick to the mat after TONS of brayering/pressure. What am I possibly doing wrong? Would love to see this thing in action!!
Liz, HLMS Reader Support says
That is super strange as the Pink Mat adhesive is super sticky!!
Check out the support page on Cricut and see if anything there helps?
https://help.cricut.com/fabricgrip-mat-tips
If your fabric still doesn’t stick, I suggest calling Cricut Member Support and maybe they’ll replace your mats if they’re defective?
Liz, HLMS Reader Support
Kristin says
If you find that your pink mats are totally unusable asthey are, and you would have to trash them, give that LA Totally Awesome spray a try. That is what I did. The mat lasted about 5 more months. It is totally un-sticky now, and since it is useless like this, I’m going to try some re-stickying methods. I cut fabric several times a week, and the mats just wear out, it seems. Maybe Cricut didn’t realize how much fabric cutting we sewists would be doing.
Becky says
Is the la totally awesome a hair spray or a cleanser
Kristin says
Becky, the LA Totally awesome spray is some kiind of a cleaning product from Dollar Tree.
Liz, HLMS Reader Support says
It is a cleanser.
Liz, HLMS Reader Support
Bettina mays says
Thank you this is really helpful. I do a great deal of quilt and doll making cutting the fabrics on the pink Matt. I do all of the mentioned things you do but when it won’t stick and has to much hair. Scraping makes it worse. I rinse in plain water then I use a woven clean quilting fabric at least 12×12 to wipe back and forth. The fabric dust clings and makes lint balls that roll off. Still stay careful not to touch with hands. Let dry till only slightly damp.
Kristin says
Because I helped a friend cut out some quilt blocks when my Maker was just a few days old, My long pink mat was quickly rendered unusable due to so many threads and so much lint. There was no stick left; it was useless. I went and bought another so I’d have a spare “in case.” We hit Dollar Tree and picked up a spray bottle of that LA Totally Awesome. My husband kindly sprayed the mat and just rubbed his fingers all around until the threads and lint came up. He rinsed it thoroughly. Now my mat is as sticky as new. It LOOKS a little beat up, but it has its stickiness back and I haven’t even opened the package of the second one I bought.
Debbie says
Thanks for sharing! Lol
Lynne says
Kristin, I’m just starting to use my ink mats and daw your solution. What is the LA Totally Awesome spray? Cleaning section??? Thank you!
Lynne
Kris says
I just helped a friend cut out 1/2 of a quilt, and the brand new pink mat is almost useless already. By the end of the evening, we were having a terrible time getting the fabric to stick to the mat at all. I find this rather disappointing. I hope Cricut comes up with some solutions for re-sticking these mats.
Kristin says
See my solution below.
Cj says
I buy huge rolls of sticky backed interfacing for embroidery (such as sticky backed iron on) and I can peel off the interfacing after cutting, or iron on for applique work. and That solves my fuzz and thread issue and is much less expensive than buying new mats. In industry they use air suction mats, like the reverse of an air hockey table, to hold the fabric down during cutting, these sticky mats are not a long term solution to un-backed fabric.
Cori George says
That’s a great solution! I agree that they aren’t the best solution, but they sure are better than the green mats ;-)
Jen S says
I have an older Cricut machine, with a 6×12. Can this board be cut down like the green ones?
Cori George says
I would think so. I’ve never cut down a green mat, but it’s a very similar mat to the green ones so I would think you can cut it down in the same way.
Sharon Glanville says
Thanks so much! I should have read your article before I started using my mat. I only cut felt and it’s just a mess! I’ll need to rethink what to do. Great, informative site.
Cori George says
Thanks for your kind words, Sharon! Good luck with future mats :)
Breanna says
Thank you for this post! I just cut my first felt piece and, having an Air, I went straight to my scrapper!
Question, can ONLY the rotary blade be used to cut felt? Or, would the regular blade work? I’m assuming only the rotary.
Thank you!!
Cori George says
You can technically use your fine point blade, but I think overall the rotary will give you better results. Hope that helps!
Wren says
Thank you soooo much for this post! I received my Maker as a Christmas gift and have been in near tears trying to figure out the cutting on the fabric mat and then realized that ALL the stickiness was gone in the area where I’ve been working. Stupid oily fingers! (LOL!)
Pam says
Thank you for the advice. I just got my Maker a few weeks ago and a longer mat today, so all those sticky threads do bug me!