Four Inch Fish Basket

October 1, 2010, blogger Dawn Goldsmith posted about a UFO (unfinished fabric object) that was passed down to her mother. It was a hand-pieced quilt top with forty-nine simple basket blocks set on point. One of the blocks was accidentally set in sideways, making it look more like a fish than a basket. Dawn’s sons called it the “fish and baskets” quilt because it reminded them of a Sunday school lesson. Dawn shared photos of the quilt in 2010 because her 98-year-old mother had recently told her the quilt top was made by Dawn’s great-grandmother out of leftovers from shirts Great-grandma made for her five sons. That dates the quilt at somewhere near 1885 – a real treasure. The odd thing is Maggie Malone’s book 5,500 Quilt Block Designs lists this block as “Fish Basket.” It’s the only name it carries, which is unusual for such an old design. And the book was published seven years before Dawn’s blog post.