Today we are bringing you news from the Badger Chapter in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and the Sandia Mountains Chapter in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We encourage you to learn more about them by clicking on their name. Now you can join or renew your membership with these chapters directly from our website!
Badger Chapter
Calling all members and past members of Badger Chapter Milwaukee WI! We are celebrating 50 years as a chapter in 2024. A 50 year logo was designed and all members are challenged with making this their new name tag. Instructions have been provided and the hope is to see all completed name tags at our culminating event. This year our programs have included reflections of our 5 decades.
1st Decade: The first 10 years: 1974 -1983 was celebrated in January with stories about “The Pabst Mansion Show” which brought in nearly 100 new members. Also remembered was the GLR Seminar sponsored by Badger in 1979.
2nd decade: In March the third decade highlighted members Moni Ingwerson and Mary Haworth’s contributions along with pictures of several needlework shows displaying members stitched items.
3rd Decade: In May the 3rd decade highlighted Gertrude Prochep, 2 time president, multiple times program chair, and Auctioneer extraordinaire. Gertrude’s Daughter Cathy Madigan shared her mother’s stitched pieces.
4th decade: The 4th Decade will be in July highlighting a member still with us, Carol Fisher , and 5th decade highlighting all our new members will be in September preparing us for the culminating event the Luncheon extravaganza in October. Monday, October 14th, a luncheon is planned at the Sherton 4 Points, used previously for many holiday luncheons, with a menu of three choices. Planned is a showcase of our 50 years, in photos and banners, a Silent Auction, Door prizes and a special 50th tote bag filled with items for all the attendees. Past presidents will be honored. We invite members, friends, and would love to see all past members and families.
Sandia Mountains Chapter
My EGA chapter, Sandia Mountains, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has a long history of Colcha Embroidery Education. Colcha is a traditional form of embroidery brought to the new world by the Spaniards in the early 1700s. The word “Colcha” means bedspread in Spanish. There is a distinctive self-couched stitch known as the “colcha stitch”. The work was done in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado communities and is said to be inspired by a type of 16th century silk embroidery from Spain and Portugal via Mexico. Here in “New Spain” they used what was available. They brought the Churro sheep with them. Traditionally they used homespun yarns and natural dyes. A handwoven wool called Sabanilla, a loosely woven weaved fabric was created.
The colcha yarns were hand-spun varying weights, and the colors were limited to the natural whites, browns, and black of the sheep plus greens, yellows and eventually indigo and red cochineal. They used designs of leaves, flowers, birds and other animals. Some scroll work and geometric designs were incorporated as well. They created rugs, bedspreads, altar and table runners. Eventually it was used for decorating clothing and shawls. Once commercially developed yarns and fabric were available, interest in colcha faded. In the 1930s a revival of the art returned and is now being taught again.
We are fortunate to have two Colcha teachers in our chapter, Julia Gomez and Annette Gutierrez-Turk. Both are involved with classes at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts in Santa Fe. Annette also teaches at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque and Julia at Ranchos Los Golondrinas, a living museum, outside of Santa Fe. They both are award winners and have pieces in museums.
Our chapter, now in its 50th year, is helping to bring back this traditional art form. Some of our founders created three different publications to help learn the technique and give sample designs. This has fostered a great interest in the historic Spanish colonial colcha embroidery stitching technique. As a result, in-depth study materials were compiled to create a study box. A duplicate was sent to EGA National Headquarters, but our chapter copy has been updated as new practitioners were identified and history revealed. That study box is available to borrow by EGA chapters. As part of the study, booklets were written and copyrighted on the colcha technique and regional wildflowers as early as 1977 and are still published. Copies are offered for sale to museums, exhibitions, outreach, classes and yarn shops in New Mexico and Colorado.
The materials are extensive, consisting of six binders, as well as Chapter publications and photographs of a collection of embroidered Christmas ornaments which have since been donated to the Albuquerque Museum for their permanent collection. There is NO rental fee, only a request for $25 shipping/damage deposit. The materials have also been condensed onto two DVDs and include a written description of the photographs, for separate rental. We ask only for reimbursement of the shipping cost (media mail rate via US Postal Service). The deposit minus original shipping cost is refunded upon return of the materials. Use of the materials is on a one calendar month basis.
Contact Sandra Scribner, President, for more information about our chapter email at sandiamountainsega@gmail.com.
Contact Annette Gutierrez-Turk, for information on our publications or to reserve the colcha study box by email at colchera@comcast.net.
