Slow Fish Tutorial

Here are the slow fish that I have made so far.  I want to warn you up front that this pattern is not really tutorial worthy so I will show how the block is made (as requested), but this will be our secret and will not be added to the tutorial tab.  The process for the block is a bit confusing and several times I have made a short fish instead of a slow fish.  Also, there are a couple of seams that are touchy and not easy to fit together neatly. And some of you who are fabric frugal will object to the liberal use of flip triangles with all of the the resulting fish debris.  

The slow fish was originally made for the Fishing Cats quilt that I finished in 1983.  That's just how slow it is. 

The block finishes at 8.5 inches by 9.0 inches. Seriously?

This fish will be made in four parts:  1. Fish Face   2. Fish Body  3. Carve the Fish  4: Fish Fins and Tail

And to make this fish, I am using a bit of black for the eye, a dark green, a light green and a light background swirl. Ideally, you would choose the dark green to be lighter than the black for the eye, but dark enough to contrast with the light green. And you want the light green to be dark enough to contrast with the background. That is, you have four values to manage with sufficient contrast between each.

To make the fish face, we want the following pieces:

Black:   one 1.5 inch square.

Light green: two 1.0 inch squares, three 1.5 inch squares, one 2.0 inch square and two 2 by 2.5 inch rectangles.

Dark green: two 1.5 by 2.0 inch rectangles, two 2.5 inch squares.

I show the pieces as they lay out on the fish. When a square is overlapping in the corner, that is where a flip triangle is sewn. (Please see any tutorial under the tutorial tab for a description of how to make flip triangles.)

For the eye block, you will sew a black 1.5 inch flip triangle in the lower left corner of the dark green square with a 1.5 inch light green flip triangle in the upper right corner. For the chin, sew light green 1.5 inch square flip triangles on either side of a dark green 2.5 inch square. For the nose, sew two 1 inch flip triangles on the same side of a 1.5 inch dark green rectangle. 

Now that you have made all the component parts, lay out the face as shown above. It looks very strange because we haven't carved the fish face yet so you are seeing all the sections that will be cut away. Take the eye piece and sew it to the 2 by 2.5 inch triangle of light green. Sew the nose part with the flip triangles to the two inch square of light green. On the other side, sew the 1.5 by 2 inch rectangle of dark green. For the chin, sew a 2 by 2.5 inch triangle of light green to the dark green square with two kitty corner flip triangles 

If you end up with a strange concoction like the one shown, congratulations. If not, you have two choices. Grab a seam ripper or just stop this foolishness right now. I'm sure you have plenty of other projects you could be working on.

Put the weird face piece aside while we work on the back end of the fish.

For the back end of the fish, you will need two 1.5 by 6 inch strips of light green and two 1.5 inch squares. You will also need a 1.5 by 6 inch strip of dark green, a 2.0 by 6 inch strip of dark green and two 1.5 inch squares of dark green. 

For one of the strips of light green, sew dark green flip triangles in the upper and lower right side corners. Next, for the 1.5 by 6 inch strip of dark green, sew light green flip triangles in the upper and lower right side corners.

If you can lay out your strips to look like the photo, sew them together.

If you have a front end of a fish and a back end of a fish that looks like what I have shown, sew the two sections together with the front in the front and the back in the back. Now its time to carve the fish.

To carve the fish, you will need four 3.0 inch squares of background.  Use these to sew flip triangles to each corner.

You now may have something that looks like a fish that needs a tail, a top fin and a bottom fin. 

For the tail, you will need a 1.5 by 3.0 inch rectangle of dark green, two 1.5 inch squares of background and two 1.5 by 2.0 inch rectangles of background.  Now sew the 1.5 inch squares of background as flip triangles on the left side corners of the dark green rectangle.

For the top fin, you will need a 2.5 by 3.5 inch rectangle of dark green, a 1.5 inch square of background, a 2.5 inch square of background, a 2.5 by 3.0 inch rectangle of background and a 2.5 by 4.0 inch rectangle of background.  Now sew a 1.5 inch square of background as a flip triangle to the lower right corner of the dark green rectangle and a 2.5 inch square of background as a flip triangle to the upper left corner of the dark green rectangle. 

For the bottom fin, you will need two 1.5 inch squares of dark green. You will also need a 1.5 by 4.0 inch strip of background and a 1.5 by 6.0 inch strip of background. Sew a dark green 1.5 inch square flip triangle to the upper right corner of the 1.5 by 4.0 inch strip of background and sew a dark green 1.5 inch square flip triangle to the lower left corner of the 1.5 by 6.0 inch strip of background.

If you have been able to follow along so far, we should stop and congratulate Buddy for his expert skills at editing these instructions. But no treats please. The vet thinks there is too much Buddy.

Start with the tail fin and sew the 1.5 by 2.0 inch rectangles of background to either side of the tail (as shown). Sew this to the back end of the fish. If you are lucky, the pointy ends will match nicely. (This is one of the touchy and problematic parts of this pattern.)

For the top fin, sew the 2.5 by 3.0 inch rectangle to the front of the backward slanting top fin and sew the 2.5 by 4.0 inch rectangle to the back side of the top fin piece. Sew this along the top of the fish after you have sewn the tail on. Another problematic join is where the top fin meets the top of the fish...sigh.

Last, sew the dark green ends of the bottom fins together and sew them to the fish with the longer strip in the front. 

And now you either have a green slow fish or some extra time in your life to make something else.