We are Las Colcheras
Las Colcheras Quilt Guild is located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the wonderful Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande, where it’s warm and sunny almost all year. In fact, we have about 350 days of sunshine (somewhere in the valley) each year.
Our name, Las Colcheras, refers to colcha, the Spanish word for coverlet or counterpane. In the Borderland, where we live, it typically refers to a comforter. Elsewhere, it also refers to a particular type of Spanish embroidery, probably dating from the Spanish colonial period in New Mexico.
Often people think of the art quilt movement as something new, assuming that in the past all quilts were made out of necessity. Not so. Although the first quilts were probably quilted vests used as a form of body armor, it wasn’t long before women of all circumstances made their quilts to add beauty to their home.
European women may have brought quilting to America but many other groups have added their own traditions to quilt making including African Americans, Native Americans, Hawaiians, Colonial Spaniards and Mexican Americans and the Amish. Now we New Mexicans here in the Mesilla Valley are adding our own traditions to the long line of needle artisans who preceeded us.