Simpson Hotel

Nelda's Quilt Shop

Virden, New Mexico barely registers as a town as you drive through on two-lane Highway 78. What does register is its lushness, the deep shade of towering cottonwoods and pecan trees, flowers blooming in profusion in side yards, food and feed crops in neat long rows stretching out to the banks of the Gila. Horses everywhere, and cows, even a few llamas. Tractors moving at a dreamy pace. Escaped chickens darting out from hedges. Washes that carry flash floods right across the highway, rendering it impassable in a heavy rain. In Virden you quickly forget that all around is deep desert. It is a tiny, secret riverside paradise.

As you wind through the settlement, a small sign pops into view pointing to Nelda’s Quilt Shop, a quarter mile or so off the main road. So how does Nelda Potter stay in business in such a remote corner of the world, on a tiny thoroughfare that few would ever even hear about?

“Well,” says Nelda, slipping a thick catalogue from under a pile of folded batting, “here’s the secret. This is the best advertising you could want in this business and it’s not even expensive.” Her listing in the Quilters’ Travel Companion, printed every other year, brings customers to her door from all over North America.

“We have all the fabrics, of course, but where we really stand out is with the notions we carry.”

Does anyone born after 1960 even know that notions means something other than fleeting ideas? Certainly quilters know, and Nelda’s notion racks rival those of the best big-city fabric stores. Needles in dozens of gauges and shapes, seam rippers, seam bindings, snaps and hooks big and small, buckles and baubles, buttons and beeswax. Great racks of jewel-bright spools of thread. Even a selection of cowboy hats arranged on a back wall.

But that’s only the beginning, and as we cross a breezeway to a second building, it grows clearer and clearer why quilters from around the land would seek out Nelda’s. In this sun-filled structure is a collection of machines peculiar to quilting, from a cutter than slices through eight thicknesses of fabric to two giant “free-arm” quilting machines that together fill up a room. Nelda has two artisans who can operate those machines with breezy confidence.

Nelda’s work with the 4-H and the classes in her shop help to ensure the quilt entries at the Greenlee County Fair each September will be stellar.

Nelda also owns the store "Stitches" in Pima, Arizona, a few miles west of Safford. You’ll find it just east of "Taylor Freeze". Stop by for food and drink and then spend some time at the Quilt Store. Manager Deanna Mangum stocks lots of fabric and offers a variety of classes for the public of Eastern Arizona.

Nelda’s hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 1:30 to 6:00 p.m., Thursday 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., or by appointment. Call (575) 358-2184