Resources

There are destinations across the San Luis Valley and Colorado to visit colcha embroidery, including:


Saguache Public Library

The Range in Saguache

Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Alamosa

Sangre de Cristo Heritage Center (Closed for Renovations)

El Pueblo History Museum

History Colorado Center


Regionally, historic and contemporary colcha embroidery can be found in New Mexico at these sites:


Millicent Rogers Museum

La Hacienda De Los Martinez

Hardwood Museum

Museum of International Folk Art

Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum

Annual Spanish Market in Santa Fe in July

El Rancho de Las Golondrinas

Villanueva Tapestry

Albuquerque Museum

Articles

History of Colcha Embroidery in Saguache County by Adrienne Garbini and Trent Segura, 2024

Las Artistas del Valle de San Luis Arvada Center Catalog, 1982

Master Apprentice, Colorado Folk Arts and Artists, 1986 - 1990

Stitchery in Colcha, Americana Magazine, 1982

Así es la Colcha by Delores Worley, 2013

Videos

Threads of Tradition by Bill Snider, 1990

Los Testamentos by Kathryn Nelson, 1980

Colcha Circle by Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area
and Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, 2019

Stitches in Time - The Villanueva Tapestry by Cornerstones Community Partnerships, 2022

Bordadoras de Ninhue, on Ninhue, Chile Embroidery,
by Fundación Artesanías de Chile, 2021

Bordadoras de Ninhue, on Ninhue, Chile Embroidery Artists,
by Carlos Roberto Contreras C., 2018

Magic Wool (Lana Mágica), on Isla Negra, Chile Embroidery Artists, by Cecilia Domeyko, 1995

Bibliography

Stitching Rites: Colcha Embroidery along the Northern Rio Grande
by Dr. Suzanne MacAuley, University of Arizona Press, 2000

Sewing Their Stories, Telling Their Lives: Embroidered Narratives from Chile to the World Stage (1969-2016) by Martha Manier, Humboldt State University Press, 2019

Embroiderers of Ninhue: Stitching Chilean Rural Life
by Carmen Benavente Orrego-Salas, Texas Tech University Press, 2010

New Mexico Colcha Club: Spanish Colonial Embroidery & the Women Who Saved It
by Nancy C. Benson, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2008

The Stitches of Creative Embroidery
by Jacqueline Enthoven, Schiffer Craft Book, 1964

Materials

These are the traditional materials for San Luis Valley colcha embroidery:

Colcha embroidery uses wool thread. San Luis Valley colcha embroidery often uses commercially produced Colonial Persian 3 ply yarn.

Paternayan/Colonial 3-Ply Persian yarn is available in Colorado at

Diversions Needlepoint in Englewood

or online at

Florilegium

Traditional New Mexico colcha embroidery uses hand spun hand dyed churro sheep thread. Churro thread is available at

Española Valley Fiber Arts Center

and

Tierra Wools

Use an approximately 18 inch long thread. Shorter threads have to be changed more often, longer threads wear out while you stitch. Use one strand at a time of the 3 ply yarn.

Wool or cotton or linen are easiest to work with. Examples include osnaburg and muslin. Traditional New Mexican embroidery uses a hand woven wool sabanilla. Wool felt could be used also. Difficult to work with fabrics would be stretchy or have a tight weave that makes it harder to pull the yarn through.

Osnaburg, the most frequently used fabric in San Luis Valley colcha embroidery, is available widely in fabric stores and online.

Crewel needles sizes 18-22 are easiest to thread and stitch with. Many styles of needle will work in a pinch. The needle should be sharp.

The San Luis Valley colcha embroidery project is supported with donations from Colonial Needle.

Hoop

Some artists use one, some don't. It is a challenge to learn the correct tension of the thread that keeps the fabric from puckering. A plastic hoop with a lip is useful in keeping the fabric taught and sometimes people find it easier to control their tension. Some stitchers keep their stitches loose and work without a hoop with the cloth in their lap.

Artists usually use 7 - 10 inch hoops, which are available widely in craft stores and online.

Scissors

The San Luis Valley Colcha Embroidery Project provides the storied stork embroidery scissors for our workshops. These scissors are the descendants of clamps that midwives used to cut umbilical cords, and are loved by artists of all ages.

Learn more about the stork scissor history here.

The Colcha Stitch

Make a simple design—a box, a circle, a leaf, any simple shape— directly on the fabric with a marker.



Start on the front of the fabric. Take a needle and insert it through the fabric, leaving a tail. Make a small straight stitch or two (A).



Make a long stitch all the way across the design (B).

Insert the needle on one side of the thread line a small distance along the laying stitch (C).

A small way further down the laying stitch insert the needle on the other side of the thread from where you are—"crossing over" (D). Make these "couching" or "tacking" stitches all the way back to the end of the laying stitch.

This method does not use knots to secure the thread to the cloth, but there are no hard and fast rules.

The thread is secured at the end when you have only a short length left—bury it in the stitches you did.