Featured quilter has been sewing all her life

Therese Stempin has never been very far away from a sewing machine. Her mother bought her a Necchi machine when she was in the third grade.

Stempin still has the machine, in almost pristine condition in its hard case. It’s small. Fits almost in one hand, with a hand crank. Stempin used to sew doll clothes with it.

Stempin grew up in Bremerton, Washington and Alaska. Her father worked for the federal government as a civilian on military bases, so they moved back and forth. It was in Alaska she started sewing earnestly, in junior high school. Her mother had a nice Singer Featherweight machine. Mom let her use it an hour at a time, but when they went out,  Stempin secretly used it more to sew clothes.

It was then she knew her career path.

“I’m going to be a home economics teacher,” she told herself.

And that’s the path she took, getting a degree in home economics from Central Washington State. Soon thereafter she had a teaching job in Washington.

“I was a rebel,” she recalled. “I let boys take my class. The shop teacher hated me, because it meant he’d have to let girls take his class.”

Those first classes didn’t have sewing machines. Then the community got her a Cadillac and then later, she got school funding for machines.

But she left teaching for awhile and started a family with her husband, Gary. They moved to Columbia Falls and after a tough pregnancy that almost killed her, she started quilting.

This was 1978. Stempin said she learned to quilt from the likes of Selena Beckwith, a renowned local quilter, and many others.

“I learned from the masters,” she said.

She’s been quilting ever since. She would go back to education. Was the school librarian at Ruder Elementary from 1993 to 2005. She joined the Teakettle Quilt Guild in Columbia Falls. Was even the president for a few years. The guild celebrates its 25th year this year. Stempin has been a member for 22.

At the Guild’s big show coming up April 12 at Glacier Gateway Elementary in Columbia Falls, she’ll be the featured quilter.

Stempin said her favorite quilts are ones that come from fabric patterns from the 1930s and ‘40s.

“They used to be flour sacks,” she said.

She says she quilts about 20 or 30 hours a month, makes six to eight quilts a year. Mostly for friends and family.

“Some I sell,” she said.

She’s modest in her endeavors, but the quilts are both beautiful and functional.  Her favorite is one she recently made for her new grandson, who is 1.

Her advice to upcoming quilters? Join a quilt guild.

“We help each other,” she said. They often collaborate on pieces, even have retreats and they make a host of quilts for charitable organizations. For younger local kids, she suggests joining fellow quilter Sherry Madsen’s 4-H group. They do a lot of quilting as well.

The quilt show starts at 9 a.m. and runs to 3:45 p.m. Admission is free but a donation to the Columbia Falls Food Bank is appreciated.