Make a mini quilt using fabrics from Home Is Where Your Story Begins,
the quilting-cottons collection by Jamie Fingal, the Rebel Quilter.
The collection is based on Jamie’s original artwork, with fabrics produced by Hoffman California Fabrics.
Mini quilt by Jamie using her screenprint line.
Jamie demo-ing at Fall Quilt Market in Houston.
Introduction
Embrace your inner “rebel quilter” and create a unique mini quilt that says exactly what you
want it to say using Jamie’s collection that offers colorful fabrics with hand-lettered words,
coffee cups, houses and more. Jamie uses a fusible-appliqué technique that is easy, fast and
fun. You’ll be fussy-cutting fabrics and fusing them onto a wool-blend felt backing before freemotion quilting to finish your collaged, mini art quilt.
Each mini quilt roughly measures 11-3/4” wide by 16-3/4” tall. Cut a piece of wool-blend felt
about that size for your backing. Our sample uses WoolFelt® by National Nonwovens. (Note
from Jamie: Avoid using polyester felt because noxious fumes may release when ironed in the
fusing process.) We used one layer of felt for our samples, but Jamie often uses two layers
because she prefers a firmer foundation for her quilts. Either way is okay!
For our mini quilt, we selected three fabrics from Jamie’s “Home Is Where Your Story Begins:”
a half-yard of the focal fabric (#L3375 181-Rainbow) and smaller pieces (roughly fat quarters) of
the word coordinate (#L3376 181-Rainbow) and one of the blender dot coordinates (#L3379
301-Bluebird). (See all the fabrics in the line at hoffmanfabrics.com.)
How to prep fabrics for fusing: Jamie recommends Mistyfuse (a fusible web adhesive) because
it doesn’t change the hand of the cloth and it’s easy to sew. It is sold in sheets and small bolts.
1.) Position the adhesive side of the Mistyfuse onto the wrong side of the fabric. You’ll see that
the adhesive side has a slight sheen to it. Trim off any Mistyfuse that runs over the fabric.
2.) Place a sheet of parchment paper or a nonstick pressing sheet (like the Goddess Fat Sheet
by Mistyfuse) on top before running a dry iron (on the cotton setting) over the area of fabric
and fusible web. Check whether the Mistyfuse edges are melting into the fabric by lifting up a
corner of the pressing sheet for inspection.
Laying adhesive side of Mistyfuse onto wrong side of Jamie’s fabric.
(The pink fabric is simply flannel that is serving as our ironing surface.)
Trim any extra Mistyfuse.
Parchment paper is set on top of Mistyfuse and fabric before ironing on cotton setting.
(Or use a nonstick pressing sheet like Goddess Fat Sheet by Mistyfuse.)
Once the fusible has been adhered to all the fabrics you are using, start fussy-cutting. For the
main piece, we fussy-cut a square measuring about 8-1/2”. We took care to center the square
to capture most of the house motif. Feel free to cut out motifs that you don’t want in your final
design. You’ll be collaging over these areas to fill in the sky/background.
For the bottom half of our quilt, we took Jamie’s word fabric and fussy-cut strips measuring
about 6-1/4” tall by 11-3/4” wide. We stacked these strips and positioned them in three to five
rows to create our story. Your story can read like Jamie’s: “Home Is Where Your Story Begins.”
Or, make up your own story by selecting the words that mean the most to you. Some examples:
“Live The Life You Imagined” and “Do What You Love And Love What You Do.”
Position the focal fabric at the center of the felt backing and the word fabric (either a whole
piece or fussy-cut strips) at the bottom. Cut small squares of blue background from the focal
fabric or the blue dot coordinate to collage the sky/background and/or cover other motifs that
you want to hide. Build up the sky/background area as you’d like on your felt background by
collaging square pieces of fabric. By using squares, you’ll achieve a distinctive patchwork look.
Cut three small strips of the blue dot coordinate and position vertically on either side of your
quilt and horizontally at the top to complete your sky/background and frame your quilt.
Now it’s time to add design elements. For instance, we fussy-cut the flag pennant from the
focal fabric and positioned it so that it drapes diagonally at the top of our quilt. Then we set a
bird on the cup. You can add small square patches showing a spool of thread or one of Jamie’s
tiny houses. You can fill in the rows with fussy-cut flowers, words, houses and other motifs.
Select key words to position at the top of your quilt and on either side, such as “Patchwork,”
“Unwind,” “Measure,” “Fuse,” “Love,” and “Imagine.” As you see from our samples, there are
lots of different layout options depending on your message and your mood!
Different ways you can make a mini quilt via Jamie’s collage aesthetic:
Here are some more ideas for making a mini quilt using Jamie’s collage appliqué technique:
Feel free to collage just short of the edges of your felt backing. You don’t have to worry about
seam allowances because you’ll be quilting the fabrics onto the felt background.
Run a dry iron over all the fabrics in your collaged composition in order to fuse them together
and also onto the felt backing. Once everything’s fused in place, you can flip over your quilt and
trim any fabric pieces that have run over the sides.
Now you’re ready for free-motion machine quilting. At this point you may want to doubleback your quilt with another piece of felt for a firmer foundation. Or stay with a single layer of
felt for backing. It’s up to you! (P.S. National Nonwoven’s WoolFelt® comes in lots of colors.)
We used black thread and “traced” our motifs and strips, using (mostly) a straight stitch. We
stitched around our house, cup, word strips, flags and the many other small patchwork squares
and motifs to create a pretty, quilted look. Feel free to free-motion small squiggles, flowers and
other types of curved and straight lines to add some textural design elements. Try the zigzag
stitch! Remember to stitch around the entire quilt close to the edge of the fabrics in order to
secure all the fabrics along the borders.
Guess what? You’re done! Do what Jamie does and hang your mini quilt using a laundry line
and clothespins. Another idea of hers: create mini quilt hangers by hand-sewing two pull tabs
collected from soda cans on the backside of the quilt near the top edge. Then hang your quilt
on push pins or small hooks or thread it on a pretty ribbon or robe to fly like a flag.
There you have it: A quilted story that is uniquely your own. Now, how about quilting a story for
a friend or loved one? Get more inspiration from Jamie at jamiefingaldesigns.blogspot.com.