You may have noticed in my last quilt update, that the fish quilt had and official name… I’ve called it A Fish Called Rhonda, and I thought I better explain…

First, Rhonda is Mom’s name… and since she passed on her love of all things quilting, and we both love the movie A Fish Called Wanda… well… it just worked.

Now onto those fish….

I’m currently banging them out, two at a time (One fish, two fish?), and I thought you’d like to see how I’m doing it.

You’ll need:

• Three 5″ squares in background colour
• Two 5″ squares in a fabric for the fish body. (I’m using charm packs, which is why these particular squares are 5″, but if you are cutting, you can cut them 4.5″ right away.)
• Two 5″ squares in fabric for the fish fins
• One 5″ square in fabric for the fish tail
• Four 6.5″ squares in background colour, cut on the diagonal, giving you eight triangles.

Step 1: Pair your three background squares with the fin and tail fabrics, and create two half square triangles out of each set using the 2 from 1 method. This will give you four fin blocks and two tail blocks.

Step 2: Trim your fish body, tail and fin blocks to 4.5″. (If you cut your body blocks, instead of using charms, you won’t need to trim them.)

Step 3: Arrange your blocks to look like a fish, and sew together like a four-patch.

Step 4: Starting with one side, centre the long side of your background triangles and sew to your fish (corners will extend pass the edges). Press back and repeat on other sides. (I do opposite sides first.) Tip: Don’t trim the dog ears until you are finished – it can be tricky to get them positioned, and you may want to rip back and resew.

And voila… you have two matching fish that can be arranged in any way you like. I currently have six completed which means I need another 24 to finish my quilt top.

I guess I better keep fishing…er… sewing.