Places to Learn More

Colcha embroidery has been documented in various books, most extensively by Nora Fisher in her chapter "Colcha Embroidery" in Spanish Textile Tradition of New Mexico & Colorado (1979) & revised edition Rio Grande Textiles (1994), and Nancy C. Benson’s 2008 New Mexico Colcha Club: Spanish Colonial Embroidery & the Women who Saved It, all published by the Museum of New Mexico Press, and Suzanne P. MacAulay’s Stitching Rites: Colcha Embroidery Along the Northern Rio Grande (2000), University of Arizona Press, and in various articles and small press publications.

You can buy books about colcha embroidery and colcha embroidery supplies at the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center

To see colcha from museum collections online, visit

The Museum of International Folk Art

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts

The Harwood Museum (after clicking the link, enter colcha in the search box)

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts offers a good short description of colcha embroidery on this page.

And in this YouTube video you can see a 10 minute colcha lesson with Mónica Sosaya Halford.

If you are looking online for more information, search for "Spanish colonial embroidery" as well as for "colcha." Different sites use different terms.