Decay

After the Quilt show in Mexico City, there was an excursion to the floating gardens of Xochimilco .  There, we were able to ride on a “trajinera”  (a famous type of a colorful, flat bottom boat).   During this water cruise we had an embroidery class given by an indigenous teacher from the hills of Oaxaca.  In between our hand sewing, we could look up and see other colorful boats filled with musicians, others selling food, flowers and souvenirs.  During our excursion we floated through more quiet areas where we could see trajineras and chalupas that were no longer in use.  A few were underwater with moss growing on it, others well weathered and looked abandoned.  My quilt is based on a picture I took of an old door with a weathered chalupa (type of canoe) in front of it.

I used a confetti technique to emphasize the overgrowth of the grass and weeds. I used variegated cording to create the tree and scraps of tyvek that Els had given me, for all the wood looking parts, a yellow ribbon for the inside of the chalupa and black tulle to make it look like the chalupa is floating in the greenish water.  I burned off some of the tulle on the door and wooden areas and shaded the inside of the boat with a fabric marker.