A bald eagle flies in a swirling blue sky above a small log cabin on a creek below the mountains. A moose is knee-deep in the water and smoke curls up from the chimney.

It’s like a painting, only rather then using paint, the artist stitched pieces of fabric together to make this piece.

And it’s hanging behind Nancy Collard along with three others. The quilts aren’t hers, although they were featured at her Bigfork quilt show booth.

They were sewn together at the hands of some of her students who participated in one of Collard’s Smokey Bear Ranch quilt retreats. Collard was giving away two retreats to quilt show attendees who signed up for her drawing.

“All you have to bring is your sewing machine and the things you want to work on,” Collard told some interested quilters. “I do instruction on demand.”

She was one of the retail sales booths set up on the west side of the Bigfork Masonic Lodge for the Quilt Guild Show that took place on Saturday and Sunday.

For twenty years the Collards have owned the Smokey Bear Ranch about 10 miles up the North Fork Road outside of Columbia Falls. In the summertime it’s strictly a bed and breakfast, but from the first week of October to the beginning of June, Collard hosts quilting retreats once a month.

The retreats run $160 per person for a two-night and three-day stay at the ranch. Meals, linens, lodging, cutting stations, pressing stations and sewing tables are included.

While she used to teach specific classes, she said quilters are more interested in learning how to do whatever it is they are working on at the time. Therefore, Collard gears her classes to whatever retreat guests want.

“There isn’t much I haven’t done in the quilting world,” she said. “I’ve sewn since I was about 10 years old.”

Collard started quilting right around when they started the ranch. She said they needed quilts for the beds and a nice quilt was expensive so she decided to teach herself how to quilt and make her own.

“It’s become an obsession, an addiction maybe,” she said. “Quilting is something that you either get into big time or don’t do at all.”

For more information about the retreats go to www.smokybear.com/retreat.htm, or call Collard at 387-4249 or email her at [email protected].