The Stitch Up

Spanish Embroidery of the American Southwest

Within the mix of textiles I think about as being part of the Southwest frontier include the brightly embroidered shawls, blouses and quilts that originated from Mexico and its Spanish origins.  In doing a  little research, the majority of what I think of as Spanish or Mexican embroidery is the "Colcha" embroidery.  [1]  Colcha embroidery was originally used to mend holes in bed spreads called Colchas and the Colcha stitch was a method that preserved yarn at a time when textiles were the result of a long process of collecting wool from sheep and turning it into yarn. [2]

 

The wool on wool Colcha embroidery is one of the few textiles developed and made in New Mexico during the Spanish Colonial period.  [3]  Wool used for Colcha embroidery was dyed using indigenous plants and the designs reflected the animals and plants that women saw in their daily lives. [4]  While commercial yardage and yarns did eventually become available and started to influence styles and compositions of embroidery, the remoteness of the regions in New Mexico where Colcha was practiced meant that women had to be resourceful and the Colcha tradition was further defined by the use of recycled textiles. [5]

 

One of the best resources I found on Colcha Embroidery is the book "New Mexico Colcha Club" which covers the history of Colcha embroidery as well as efforts by a group of women in New Mexico to preserve the technique and share its history.  [6]  The book explains that the Colcha style uses just one stitch - the "Colcha" stitch - rather than a combination of stitches.  [7]

 

 

(Photo from the book "New Mexico Colcha Club")

 

The author of "New Mexico Colcha Club" believes that the Colcha stitch provided an easy and extremely flexible stitch that could be used to cover a large quilt faster than any other stitch.  [8]

 

 

(Photo from the book "New Mexico Colcha Club")

 

The availability of factory made cotton fabric and finer plied yarns mentioned above did result in a new branch of Colcha embroidery with a change in design.  [9].  Designs of freestanding motifs were used more than a covering of the entire ground with a continuum of stitches as with the wool on wool style.  The Colcha stitch was still the fundamental, dominant stitch in the wool on cotton branch of Colcha embroidery but additional types of stitches - chain, stem, satin and split stitches - were also used.  [10]

 

 

(Photo from the book "New Mexico Colcha Club")

 

Colcha embroidery died off at the turn of the century as the textiles used in the Southwest  became more of the purchased, factory made variety and less of the wool that was locally woven and decorated.  I've read a few different accounts of women who made a concerted effort to preserve and teach Colcha embroidery.  "New Mexico Colcha Club" covers the efforts of Maria Adela Teofila Ortiz Lujan to establish a social club that met monthly to share patterns, work on Colcha projects and enjoy each other's company. [11] The history of Colcha embroidery was also preserved through the Spanish Colonial Arts Society in New Mexico which acquired and displayed historic Colcha embroideries.  [12]  The tradition of Colcha embroidery continues to be carried out by women in New Mexico, including Esther Vigil the daughter of Teofila Lujan.  Ms. Vigil  displays her Colcha artwork and has taught classes on the history and technique of Colcha. [13] 

 

 

(Photo from the book "New Mexico Colcha Club")

 

I think a lot about what attracts me to quilting, embroidery and other textile art forms.  I get glimpses of it when I read about preservation efforts of traditional techniques or stories of women who enjoyed the same textile hobbies hundreds of years ago that I enjoy now.  These fiber art forms provided women over the centuries with a creative outlet and an opportunity to bond and socialize. It's an art form that's more likely to be taught from mother to daughter, or between friends than taught in a formal setting but it should be preserved and celebrated in the same way that painting or sculpture is preserved. I so admire the effort it takes to maintain historic techniques when the world wants things quicker and easier each decade.  Reading about historic textile art forms and the women who defined them is always inspirational for me and I hope you all were inspired as well!

 

References:

 

[1] Deborah Busmeyer, A Stitch Out of Time (July, 2016) https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/art-nm-97074/

[2] Busemeyer

[3] Lynne Robinson, Colcha: Stitches and Stories (June, 2019)

[4] Robinson

[5] Robinson

[6] Nancy C. Benson, New Mexico Colcha Club, Spanish Colonial Embroidery & The Women Who Save It, (Museum of New Mexica Press, 2008)

[7] Benson, 48

[8] Benson, 59

[9] Benson, 70

[10] Benson, 71

[11] Benson, 103

[12] Benson, 109

[13] Benson, 155

Native Souvenir Beadwork

Growing up in California, my family took a lot of vacations around the southwest of the U.S.  One of my favorite parts of these trips was stopping at souvenir stands outside places like Four Corners or National parks and talking my parents into buying me a beaded belt or beaded keychain from one of the Native artists.  I loved the patterns and the colors:  they felt like a reflection of the locations we had visited.  These beaded mementos were part of the background of memories and experiences that inspired my love of embroidery and textiles in general.  

 

Although these souvenirs were prized items to me, I’ll acknowledge a lack of understanding of the importance of the patterns that were used or how these items might have been changed from their original purpose within specific tribes in order to appeal to tourists.  As Summer wound down this year, I was thinking about those vacations and I decided to dig into some reading about the history of Native American beaded art as souvenirs.

 

The popularity of Native beadwork as souvenir began in Niagara Falls in the 1800s.  A variety of beaded products were initially provided, however in the Victorian era, beaded bags became the trend and Native beaded bags became the focus of the souvenirs that were offered at Niagara Falls.[1]    

 

(Photo from the book “A Cherished Curiosity")

 

Native women adapted traditional skills to appeal to the Euro-American tourist markets.  For instance, some of the traditional designs that represented nature were modified for these bags to focus on floral designs that were more popular with the tourists.  [2]  

 

(Photo from the book “A Cherished Curiosity"

 

For this reason, late nineteenth century ethnologists considered beaded souvenir bags and tourist art as cultural corruption and inauthentic.  However, since the 1970s, attitudes have changed and the work is recognized as a legitimate representation of Native “worldview” as for most Native people the choice was assimilation or extermination.  “In this sense the making of souvenir art was not a cultural betrayal but a strategy to ensure cultural survival.”  [3] 

 

 

(Photo from the book “A Cherished Curiosity”)

 

One of the interesting things that A Cherished Curiosity points out is that some of the bags have a few off colored beads in the design.  While beads were sold in hanks and occasionally had off colored beads, the author thinks this is more likely a reflection of the practice of Indian handcrafts to include an imperfection in order to provide a gateway for bad spirits.  If you had any negative thoughts during creation of an artwork, the one odd bead would release it.  [4]

 

 

(Photo from the book “A Cherished Curiosity”)

 

I love this idea for a number of reasons.  For one thing I think it reflects the importance of handmade goods in general: they have defects and imperfections and hence a heart and soul that manufactured goods can’t replicate.  It also reflects how traditions can be maintained even in art that is being created to appeal to an outside market.

 

A similar tourist souvenir that was also sold at Niagara Falls was the beaded pincushion.  During the mid 1800s, with the advent of industrialization, pins became inexpensive and were also necessary due to the complexity of ladies’ clothing. They were often carried on pocket sized pincushions and stored on fancy pincushions. [5]

 

(Photo from the Post-Journal)

 

Similar to the souvenir beaded bags, creating and selling beaded souvenir pincushions in Niagara Falls supplemented the income of many tribes which had declined with the continued loss of their hunting and

farming lands.  [6]  Due to the popularity of these beaded souvenirs, by 1850 women’s publications were telling readers how to bead like the Native Americans.

 

The Oneida Indian Nation website has a post on their collection of beadwork items which include the pincushions and bags made for sale at Niagara Falls in the 18th and 19th centuries.  [7]  

 

(Photo from the Oneida Indian Nation website)

 

(Photo from the Oneida Indian Nation website)

 

The Oneida Nation website beautifully describes the importance of these items: "Haudenosaunee regard bead working as a gift from the Creator to teach patience and humility. Such a gift should be used and shared. Often beadwork was carried on by women of different generations who talked, as they worked, of their community and its history. In such a setting, these beaded creations took on deep personal meanings. Stories, llovingly interwoven into every beaded flower, petal and stalk, told of what it meant to be Oneida and Haudenosaunee”. [8]

 

The traditional beadwork techniques are continuing to be taught and celebrated.  The Oneida Nations Arts Program teaches courses on raised beadwork techniques.  [9]  They also host the International Iroquois Beadwork Conference which brings together scholars of raised beadwork.  

 

Current artists are also taking traditional beading and using it in new ways that still honor the past.  One of my favorites is “The Red Dress” collaboration between Dr. Jessica Metcalfe and Tyra Jerome . [10]  The dress is a beautiful homage to the traditional buckskin dresses of the Northern Plains created in red velvet.  The necklace incorporates beadwork imagery of the Turtle Mountains, the medicine wheel, the cycles of life, and the wild prairie rose.  The collaboration was "designed to bring awareness to the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women from throughout the US and Canada who were taken from their families too soon, and their perpetrators were either not pursued or were not convicted."

 

(Photo from Beyond Buckskin)

 

(Photo from Beyond Buckskin)

 

This return of traditional beadwork to reflecting the vision of Native artists is inspiring.  There are not many textile techniques that originated in North America and Native beadwork is a tradition that is not just being preserved but modernized and used to express the views of current Native artists.   For me, reading up on the background of an item I loved as a child, gave me more appreciation for the beadwork technique itself and the people who utilized their art in a practical way in order survive and at the same time protected the soul of their art and maintained it into the present.  

 

References:

[1] Gerry Biron, A Cherished Curiosity, The Souvenir Beaded Bag in Historic Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Art, (Gerry Biron, 2012) 6-7

[2] Biron, 14-15

[3] Biron, 2-3

[4] Biron, 35-36

[5] Phoebe Forbes, Beaded Pincushions (November 2016) https://www.post-journal.com/life/features/2016/11/beaded-pincushions/

[6] Forbes

[7] Oneida Beadwork Collection Offers Magnificent Artistry https://www.oneidaindiannation.com/oneida-beadwork-collection-offers-magnificent-artistry/

[8] Oneida Beadwork Collection Offers Magnificent Artistry

[9] Oneida Nations Arts Program https://www.oneidanationarts.org/index.html

[10] Dr. Jessica R. Metcalfe, The Red Dress, II (2019) (January 2019) http://www.beyondbuckskin.com/2019/01/the-red-dress-ii-2019.html

Seeking Community on the Prairie and in a Pandemic

I've been doing a lot of reading about women settling in the West and had focused on some articles about the importance of quilting bees to women settlers.  The fact that we are somewhat isolated from each other right now has had me thinking even more about the importance of connection and how crafting can often provide the path to that connection.  We are lucky that technology provides us with methods to stay virtually connected to each other, but there is nothing quite like being in the same room with the people you are close to: looking them in the eye, seeing their faces change and hearing them laugh.  While it’s not the same as the kind of isolation that was facing women on the frontier it just feels more relevant right now.  

 

Right before the request came that we all stay home and self distance. I had met a group of girl friends for brunch. It felt so good to be able to talk to these ladies, share issues we’re having at work, talk about family, plans for the future; happy items like an upcoming wedding and frustrations like a bad boss.  And while we’ve checked in on each other via text since that brunch to make sure we’re all doing ok while self distancing, it doesn’t provide the same comfort as sitting across from these ladies, sharing laughter, giving a hug hello and goodbye.  How much more difficult would it be if your life style required you to be isolated for weeks or even months at a time, away from friends or any kind of society.  No telephone or regular mail or other method to stay in contact.  It must have felt so great for these women when they were finally able to get together.

 

The quilting bee seems to have been a particularly useful tool for women to get together and socialize while still being productive which was clearly crucial since there was so much work to be done, these women really couldn't just sit around and chat: the socializing had to come with a shared effort.  But I imagine it was just as comforting to be chatting while sewing as chatting over a long brunch. 

 

 

According to Stuart Kallen, author of Women of the American Frontier, a quilt began with a pieced quilt top that women would put together on their own throughout the winter months. In the warm months these quilt tops were brought together at a quilting bee.  This was a major social occasion for the whole community but especially for the women who might only see others every few months and not at all in the winter.

 

In Women of the Frontier, Brandon Marie Miller wrote that women on farms and ranches created reasons to visit far-flung neighbors, helping one another with chores, joining in quilting bees and wool-carding parties, or establishing sewing circles.  Betty J Mills wrote in Calico Chronicles that the various types of “bees” also became popular ways to make newcomers feel welcome.  Women would exchange recipes and fashion news and soak up any information that newcomers could provide.  In addition to providing the opportunity to socialize, quilting bees helped many young woman to fill their hope chests in readiness for an upcoming wedding.  Three or four quilts might be completed in a day.  Not only was this gathering productive, but it offered an interval of respite from routine.

 

 

In addition to a much needed opportunity to socialize, according to Gender and Generation on the Far Western Frontier by Cynthia Culver Prescott the quilting bees also worked as a way to teach the younger generation necessary sewing skills.  "[Q]uilting helped to initiate second generation girls into the informal network of trade, friendship, and mutual assistance that their mothers and sisters had built on the frontier.  Quiltings...provided opportunities for women of different ages and generations to share their labor and their lives.”  Settlers’ daughters first learned to sew by piecing quilt tops and completing one’s first quilt was a highlight of a young lady’s youth.  Gaining a seat at the quilt frame indicated acceptance as an equal member into the adult female community and attending one’s first quilting party marked a woman’s inclusion in a common female bonding ritual.

 

 

What types of quilts did these ladies make?  In The American Quilt by author Roderick Kiracofe the patterns and fabrics were just as artistic and imaginative as anything we are making today.  One of the patterns highlighted in the book is the Friendship or Album quilt.  These were popular gifts to women who were leaving their family and friends to strike out to the west.  They were made up of squares with messages to the woman headed to the frontier from friends and loved ones who would be left behind.  Friends would also send blocks by mail to ladies on the frontier, to be made into a quilt.

 

The book Wisconsin Quilts by Ellen Kort highlights a variety of quilts made by women who migrated to Wisconsin during the mid to late 1800s.  The patterns include tumbling blocks, log cabin, mariners compass, basket weave, pineapple and some truly beautiful appliqué patterns.  The book includes a heart breaking story of a family who emigrated from Germany in 1849 and made their way to Wisconsin, suffering illness and loss along the way.  The wife - Eva Kraus - made a beautiful “Folk Animals and Flowers” wedding quilt for her daughter that the entire family contributed to and was reminiscent of the German folk art of Eva’s childhood.   

 

 

Although we can’t be physically together right now, I’m seeing a lot of online quilt and other craft a-longs providing online community similar to the community sought by women on the frontier. The Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts is asking people to contribute a 12x12 block that will be incorporated into a collaborative “Quarantine Quilt” which I think will be pretty cool to see when it’s finished.  Fabric and Flowers blog is doing a “mindful sewing” quilt along aimed at providing an outlet to help people stay calm and grounded during this time.  And SO many quilt groups, churches, women clubs and others are providing free patterns to create face masks for local healthcare workers.  

 

I think this really is the constant that runs through crafting throughout the decades.  The way it encourages fellowship and caring for loved ones and neighbors.  It’s one of those art forms that is also utilitarian.  People want to wrap their loved ones in something warm as well as beautiful, they want to make face masks that may save lives and also maybe provide a little whimsy for the people who are working in such difficult conditions; and while they are working on these treasures, they want to share techniques, gossip, hurts, triumphs, jokes, life lessons and just connect to each other through a medium that brings them joy.

 

I am thinking of all the crafters out there and hoping that you are finding calm and community through your projects.

Fashion Sharing on the Frontier

Based mostly I think on current trends of Bohemian fashions where virtually every culture is combined in to a kind of a hippie extravaganza of beading, embroidery, lace, denim and pattern, I had envisioned that late 1800s on the southwest frontier would involve women sharing all their fashion, textiles and needlework techniques and having something that might have been distinctly “southwest fashion”.  Specifically since I love embroidery I wanted to dig in to the embellishments that women were making to their clothes – did they learn needle lace from European immigrants, beading from native craftswomen, Spanish embroidery from the Mexican settlers who had been in the Southwest for eons? 

From what I’ve read so far there wasn’t a lot of sharing of cultures at this point in time in the Southwest, especially among the women who were arriving from the east.  One of the books I read mentioned a woman, recently arrived from the east, appreciating the sensible clothing worn by her Mexican neighbors.  The short sleeved blouse and lighter skirts, without multiple layers were obviously more practical in the heat.  But the woman’s husband insisted she keep own style of clothing in order to keep up a “proper” appearance. Women of the Frontier, Brandon Marie Miller

I started a new book recently that seems to indicate that earlier in the century, at least in Texas, there was much more adoption of local clothing – probably because in most places where new settlers arrived, the only people who could provide goods were native Americans.  For that reason, new settlers were appreciative and much more open to the fashions of their new home and adopted buckskin clothing that they bought or traded from native Americans. Calico Chronicle, Betty J. Mills,

Since I wasn’t initially finding a lot of instances of fashion sharing in the Southwest at the end of the 19^th century, I figured I’d just start diving into each of the fashion influences individually during this time.  I looked first at how women who came from the east maintained their style of dress when they came west.  What did they bring with them for the move?   How did they continue to make/buy clothes once they were settled in new homes?   How did they keep up with the changing styles?  Did their access to different plants, textiles, materials, affect any change in their style of dress?   All these questions and more will be answered!

This is one of my relatives, Madeline Hawkins Allen.  I love the fabric of her shirt and hope I find out a bit more about what shaped her fashion choices back in the day as well.

Bohemian Frontier Project

I'm starting an ongoing project here on the blog.  I've been wondering how women in the late 1800s on the frontier might have shared their fashion, sewing methods, or techniques, when all these different cultures were first getting acquainted.  We have images of people like Annie Oakley in Wild West shows in heavily embroidered and beaded costumes, combining aspects of Native American fashion with traditional anglo dresses.  But did the average white settler swap sewing tips with her Native American neighbor?  Did she adopt any of the local fashion she was seeing on Mexican women in the southwest?  Was there any swapping or combining of these frontier fashions before the boho/festival trends that started in the 60s?

I've found myself reading a lot about women on the frontier - primarily in the Southwest - to find out what they wore, how they made their clothes and what their fashion influences were.  I'm planning to organize all the information I've read into a series of articles for the blog that explores the styles of the women who were living on the frontier at this time and whether the fashions and trends of any of the groups of ladies influenced the others.  It's helping me work through what I've been reading and scratching that itch I've had to research how fashion, textiles and design might have combined in the west. 

I hope other people are as interested in this subject as I am - it's already had me doing some creating so I might also post some patterns inspired by some of the research.  I'm interested in any feedback you might have so please feel free to comment!  I'm looking forward to sharing.