Fish School progress

 It's interesting how some patterns come out exactly the right size, and some just do not.  This would be one of those things that do not actually come out like the pattern.  But I'm OK with that. 

This was a Row By Row kit that I purchased 5 or 6 years ago.  The row is a school of fish - imagine it turned horizontally.   The row itself was supposed to finish at 36" but it was really only about 30" when done.  I wanted the row to be closer to 50" wide because I'm going to use it in a child's quilt.  It is 9" across, so it will make a nice statement.  

So, I added 3 more small fish to the row and then used up that last little bits of the background to add some strips to each end.  It now measures 42", which I can live with in my plan.  There were no red fish in the kit, but since I had to add 3 new ones, I made 2 of them red.  

Speaking of plans - this is often how those lightbulb moments tend to get jotted down.  A scrap of paper off my desk with a rough sketch and some vague notes.  It's enough to remind me of what I wanted this to look like when finished.  

My plan is to use a Kaffe Fassett jelly roll that is in rainbow colors to do a basic Jelly Roll Race design for the remainder of the quilt.  But I'll separate the rows about 1/3 of the way down from the top and insert the Fish School row.   I'll use some of the extra to fill both sides of the fish to bring it out to the same width as the jelly roll rows, which should be about 50".   That way the quilt shape won't get to be too long and skinny.

We'll see if my plan comes together.