From the Vault - Stained Glass Fish Quilt

When paging through a book on stained glass one day, I saw a piece that I liked a lot and it became the inspiration for this quilt.  I made it in 2005.  It measures 29 x 37 inches.

I wanted it to look like a stained glass window, so I used dark brown for the outer border and kept the inner border simple.

For the center part (17" wide), I made a pattern on freezer paper, which at 18" wide, was just right.

I fussy cut fish and used copper-colored fusible stained glass bias tape.  The copper color made it look like the copper foil used on real stained glass. 

I used a variety of batiks to try to give some texture to the seaweed.

One of my favorite parts of making this quilt was figuring out in what order to fuse the bias tape.  With all these little pieces, I had to make sure that no raw edges were showing, so it was a bit of a challenge.

 

If you heard of a town where fishermen caught and exported more than 40 million fish a year, bound for home aquariums, you might be inclined to worry a little bit.  And it's true that in some countries, the aquarium trade is responsible for overfishing.  

Some fish, like rays, take years to mature and only produce a few offspring.   Marine species are often collected by squirting cyanide into living reefs - this stuns some fish and kills lots of others, and is devastating to coral habitat.

I take you now to Barcelos, Brazil, the poster child for fishing sustainability.  The fishermen, known as piabeiros, may export those 40 million fish a year, but they are also helping protect the Amazon rainforest.   

The aquarium trade provides 60% of the cash income for the 40,000 people living in Barcelos.  This means they have a stake in protecting the river from pollution caused by timber and mining interests, as well as cattle ranching.

But worldwide, nearly 90% of freshwater aquarium fish are from fish farms, instead of the wild.   Piabeiros are starting to lose their jobs.  If it continues like this, reasons to resist mining and logging will disappear.

The piabeiros scoop the fish from the water with handheld nets and instantly release any unwanted fish.  They mostly catch cardinal tetras, the most popular aquarium fish in Europe.  Normally these fish are plentiful.  If they find there are less per scoop than there should be, they move on to another area until populations come back again.

The tetras that are caught are the lucky ones.  They have a lifespan of one year in the wild, but two-three years in captivity.  But I guess it would be up to the fish to decide if a short, free life is better than a longer one in an aquarium.