Flying Fish Block

Flying fish don’t really fly – like Buzz Lightyear they’re only falling with style. I’ve seen them a few times, up close and personal, while cruising off Baja California or in the Caribbean. They leap from wave to wave with wing-like fins outstretched, in what looks like a lark. They’re really just trying to stay out of reach of larger, unseen predators beneath the waves: probably mackerel, marlin or tuna. The Flying Fish quilt block has been around for ages. Nancy Cabot (her real name was Loretta Leitner Rising) published a similar block with a slightly different pinwheel center in the Chicago Tribune in the spring of 1937. In her notes she said, “It is the type of pattern which lends itself to a combination of materials, both printed and plain.”