A Potts Palooza—Part One

Back in April of this past year, we showcased the Margaret Potts Quilt and our versions of a couple of the blocks. In our blog post, Potts of Flowers, we shared that the Potts quilt was made by Margaret Potts and quite a few of her closest friends and relatives. The quilt was passed down through the family and was donated to the Winterthur Museum by Priscilla Hart Miller. 

Starting in January, we will be teaching a six-month block-of-the-month class at Patches Quilting, in Mt. Airy, Maryland, with more blocks from the Potts quilt and amped up embroidery! As we were putting this class together, we knew we wanted to teach some new and interesting stitches to our students. We also wanted to keep the fabric choices simple, so as to better highlight the embroidery and thread choices. The threads used were DMC, Valdani, Gentle Arts, and Weeks as those are the ones carried by our quilt shop. 

Today, we will give you a close-up peek of which blocks we will be doing and some of the unique stitches we chose for edging the fused appliqué. The buttonhole stitch was used on all the appliqués in the original quilt, and while that look has a simple beauty, we wanted to get a little more creative this time. So along with some old favorites stitches, we will be introducing some fun, new stitches in the class. Enjoy!

Potts Block #31

As this is the first block of the class, we have kept the stitches simple

Potts Block #32

Love the variegated DMC floss around the center

Potts Block #13

The Valdani pearl #12 makes a beautiful spiral trellis stitch

Potts Block #19

The cable chain stitch was done around all the blue flowers in this block

Potts Block #12

The Basque stitch gives a lacy edge to this flower

Potts Block #30

One strand of light purple and one strand of dark purple floss
gives a lovely variegated look to the edge of this flower.

If you live in the area—MD, DC, VA, PA—please join us at Patches Quilting and Sewing once a month for the next six months, (January to June, 3rd Saturday of each month, 1PM-4PM,) as we make these six blocks. Since our focus is on the embroidery, we will use fused appliqué; however, the same embellishment techniques could be used for needle-turn appliqué. You can contact Patches at  301-831-0366 to sign up. All you need to bring to the first class is a pair of scissors!

While we are doing six of the Potts blocks, there are 85 in the original quilt. Our hope is that through this class we will develop some "Potts Groupies" who may continue on with the rest of the blocks. For now though, we will stick to the six, as an 85-month block-of-the-month class might be a bit excessive! Stay tuned: next week we will tell you about our visit with Priscilla Miller Hart, the previous owner of this antique gem, as well as sharing interpretations of some of its blocks by other members of the Baltimore Appliqué Society.

A Quilter's Necessity

What would we, as quilters, do without our local quilt shops? Where would we go for that fat quarter in just the right color, or for that class to learn a technique that we've always wanted to try? Thankfully, Teri and I (Kara) have quite a few local quilt shops in our area, so we have decided to highlight them here on the blog. It dawned on us that we had featured quilt shops in Alaska and Florida, but we hadn't showcased any of our local shops.

We start with a shop near and dear to our hearts: Patches, in Mt. Airy, Maryland. Patches gave us our first opportunity to teach back in 2014 (seems like so long ago) and has continued to support us as teachers since.

When she opened the shop, store owner, Jackie Bingham, and her husband had recently closed the doors of their cabinet-making shop and retired; however, Jackie didn't want to just sit around. She was a self-proclaimed fabric collector and had been making charity quilts when she discovered the difference in fabric quality, while visiting a local department store. When she looked around and saw that there was no place locally to buy good quality fabric, the idea for Patches was born.

Owner, Jackie Bingham, in front of the Project Linus
supply wall

It took Jackie seven months to find a location that would work; she eventually found a suitable house right in downtown Mt. Airy. She opened in February of 2003, and the shop had room for fabric, a long-arm, and a classroom, but Jackie quickly realized, in that first year, that she would need to expand.

One of the original rooms

In 2004, a 30'x36' two-story addition was built that provided a large classroom upstairs, space for another long-arm, a line of sewing machines, and most importantly, space for more fabric! (Great cause for Jackie to do a bit of dancing!)

The beautiful batik wall

Jackie wanted to appeal as many different fabric tastes as she could support, so you can find an array of fabric styles, including reproductions, batiks, modern, flannels, and more. One of the most important things to Jackie was to have a store that was bright and well-lit. All the lighting is fitted with daylight bulbs, so that the fabric can be viewed in the best possible lighting conditions.

The reproduction corner

More fabric as well as fat quarters

If you need a sewing machine, Patches carries the Viking brand, along with a wide variety of machine quilting and embroidery supplies.

A couple of the Viking embroidery machines

Do you need patterns, books, or notions? You will most likely be able to find them at Patches. And if you need long-arm quilting services, they can provide that as well!

Just some of the many patterns Patches carries

Books galore

An assortment of supplies

Almost any notion you could need

Patches has twelve helpful employees, who work together as a family to help you with your quilting needs. The shop opened as a business, not a hobby, but when you love what you do, it shows—and 13 years later, the store is still going strong. If you are in the area, please stop by; I'm sure you will find some treasures!

And who knows? Maybe we'll see you there!