Mucky, it really doesn't, if you look at it again, you will see that the background could be seen as white water and the fish are on top in a school. I especially liked the background for that reason. I normally use contrast and value in my quilts and if you see the center of interest first, which are the fish and are darker than the lighter background then it's ok...welll in my opinion. I use my art background to help me. The background in my opinion, supports the center of interest very nicely in this case.....

Is this the one you mean. I found a good tutorial on it.

http://quiltobsession.wordpress.com/...ots-of-photos/

I have a correction to make. The block is 10x10 but I added 3.5 inch strips around it to wonk it and it ended up as a 13 inch block ...now off to do another challenge.

Little Monkey Wrenches
 

I will keep posting just blocks here as I do them on a daily basis, time permitting. Here is a little puppy quilt that is getting worked on in-between the blocks. The blocks finish at 4 inches and I need 25 to finish a little quilt. I am still working from the Aunt Gracie scraps from the Wheels quilt that I finished and posted a few days ago.

This fabric is such a happy fabric and it seems that I tend to want to use it up while the ideas are there. I am using both Block Base and EQ to print the blocks at the size I want. I find the blocks in BB, and sometimes pull them into EQ to get more printing options.. Sometimes EQ will offer a paper pieced pattern or it will allow you to create one if it doesn't offer one.

I am paper piecing these little buggers lol. I am doing the freezer paper techinque, using one set of pattern over and over.

No, that's not the one although it is pretty. The one I am thinking of is a very old swallow pattern that has much the same shape as the fish body but with wings. I think it was in Jenny Beyer's big book of quilt blocks. I love the background on your fish. If you use a solid fabric, you can always see the seam lines. If you use a fabric print, you can always see where the print is cut. The mottled light background is awesome!

I've seen a fish block done in a string quilt fashion, but this is really unique.

I am so curious about this block now...do you have a pic of it or a link.....

Very cute! A nice watery looking light blue fabric would make an awesome background if you were gonna make several blocks like this.

Directions for the block and a quilt made from it are in the book "More Quilts from The Quiltmaker's Gift".
http://www.amazon.com/More-Quilts-Qu.../dp/0439519519

There are 19 quilt patterns in the book if I counted correctly. It's early or late I guess for me since I just got in from working a 12 hour shift. The price at Amazon is excellent mine cost $26.99 :( I like both this book and the first one "Quilts from The Quiltmaker's Gift". The instructions are generally easy to follow. I have never tried the Fish block though. Yours is great!

I agree, but I don't intend to make another block lol. It takes too long, instead I am making different ones with a little challenge as well. I might be able to post the next block today.