Goldfish, Whirligig and more

According to Jinny Beyer’s book The Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns  on page 288, #11, this block has several names:  In 1906 Clara Stone called it Fish and Whirligig. Then later it was given the names Airplane Motif, Fish Quilt, Fish Block, Dove in the Window, Goldfish, Trout and Bass Block.

PDF Rotary Cutting and Templates

Also I found a site that calls it a Fish Quilt Pattern: A Bible Block.

The site has a PDF for rotary cutting and templates with seam allowances for this exact same block. Find it >>HERE<<

There is another page on the site for Free Quilt Patterns From History. The main site is Womenfolk: The Art of Quilting. It’s by Judy Anne Breneman, a retired teacher who found an interest in sharing the history of quilting.

Looks like fish are a popular quilting motif as seen by the many variations in this Google image search:

Ruby Short McKim

If you’re familiar with Kansas City Star Newspaper quilt patterns, I’m sure you’ve heard of Ruby Short McKim. Her descendants have a page dedicated to sharing her work. Her version of the Fish Block in a PDF file can be found on this page of the site.

Goldfish Crackers

From my own neck of the woods, the Emerald Coast of Florida, I found a wonderful pattern and tutorials for a Goldfish Crackers quilt block. This particular block uses turquoise and orange fabrics.

I got a little off track researching all these fish blocks, so here’s the pattern I started out with. It’s from my 1930’s quilting scrapbook so the marks on it are from the glue used to adhere it to the pages.

Eveline states it’s an old pattern and that it is similar to the Dove in the Window design. This version is from 1931. The goldfish are yellow and the surrounding blocks are a pale green. As always, remember to allow for seams with these old templates.

Download Instructions: Right-Click on the image. Select either “save link as” or “save image as” depending on what browser you are using. Or simply click on it, it will open in a new window and save it from there.

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Enjoy!

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