Category Archives: Colcha embroidery

Santa Fe: Colcha embroidery

Hello everybody! Sorry about the short break – I came down with a dreadful cold, had lots of work, then needed to travel to present at a conference, so writing posts just didn’t happen. I suppose I should mention I’m … Continue reading

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History of Colcha embroidery

Monique worked as the sound recording archivist of the John Donald Robb Archives of Southwestern Music at the Center for Southwest Research. She sent me more information on the history of colcha, and here is an edited version of her … Continue reading

Posted in Castelo Branco, Colcha embroidery | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Monique’s Colcha Embroideries

I had a colcha expert write in! Hurray!!!! Today I’ll show two examples of Monique’s work. Next week I’ll follow up with information she gave me on the history of colcha embroidery. You can check the colcha embroidery section of … Continue reading

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On Colcha Embroidery and Portugal

Méri kindly posted a very informative comment on my post about colcha embroidery. It turns out that “colcha” means bedspread in both Spanish and Portuguese. Furthermore, there is a traditional Portuguese style of embroidery which uses a similar stitch to … Continue reading

Posted in Castelo Branco, Colcha embroidery, Embroidery around the world, Surface embroidery | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Garden of Swallows

As a follow up to my last post on colcha embroidery, Julia Gomez was kind enough to send in a photo of her incredible masterpiece, El Jardín de las Golondrinas (The Garden of Swallows). It won Best of Show at … Continue reading

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Colcha embroidery

Recently I discovered another style of embroidery: Colcha embroidery is a traditional New Mexican wool-on-wool embroidery using the colcha stitch. It dates to the Spanish colonial era (colcha is also Spanish for quilt). When I investigated further, I discovered the … Continue reading

Posted in Colcha embroidery, Embroidery around the world, Free resources online, Surface embroidery, tutorials | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments