New Mexico

Hispanic arts & crafts: bultos, colcha embroidery, pano art, retablos, santos, silverwork, tinwork, weaving, woodworking

Colcha Embroidery

The Spanish word colcha means coverlet or counterpane: however, New Mexicans typically call any bed covering a colcha. Textile enthusiasts use the word colcha to identify an embroidery stitch or a finished piece of embroidery in which the colcha stitch is extensively, if not exclusively, employed. Sabanilla labrada, or wool-on-wool colcha embroidery work, is distinct because it may be one of the few textiles developed and made in New Mexico during the Spanish colonial period.

The colcha stitch is similar to the basma stitich, an embroidery stitch used by Jewish women making fine silk altar cloths, and to the bokhara stitch, an embroidery stitch used in Turkey prior to the Muslim conquest.

There are many theories as to how colcha embroidery evolved. The colonists may have been inspired by the flowers and leaves they saw on East Indian chintz, or indianilla. It is also possible that the Oriental silk shawls imported to isolated outposts of Spain's new kingdom inspired the settlers to imitate the pretty floral shapes using available, albeit coarser, materials. Many of the designs used in New Mexican colchas, including the double-headed Hapsburg eagle, are found in Spanish and Mexican embroideries. In design and function, the linen and silk embroidery of Spain and Mexico is closely related to the colcha embroidery found in the American Southwest.

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