Since she was a small girl at her mother’s treadle machine, Naomi Davidson has found sewing a perfect fit. For the last 27 years, she has made her talent pay as the proprietor of The Perfect Fit in Kalispell.

“I’ve sewn everything from wedding dresses to backpacks,” Davidson said.

Now almost 75, she has resolved to hang up her tape measure and scissors and shut down her five sewing machines as of 5 p.m. Friday. She began turning away alterations a week ago, much to the dismay of customers like Francine Hagar.

Hagar said she has been bringing her husband’s jackets in for work since the mid ’90s.

“She’s replaced a lot of zippers,” Hagar said “She does very good work.”

Charmalee Drew, a customer for about 15 years, was also disappointed to learn of Davidson’s retirement when she picked up her altered clothing last week. Drew left with referrals to Sew-N-Sew, a shop on Liberty Street; and Denise’s Sewing Studio, a mending and alteration business Denise Houtz runs out of her home.

The seamstress feels her customers’ pain acutely. Davidson admitted she gave in to pleas last week and agreed to take a couple of things for old customers.

“It’s hard to stand there and look them in eye and say no,” she said. “I love to serve.”

Davidson told customers that she was shutting down her business but keeping her volunteer job as director of the Community Kitchen-Feeding the Flathead. She oversees the organization that now provides 24 meals a month at four churches around town.

She describes that volunteer work through her Faith Alliance Church as her calling in life.

“Jesus tells us to feed the hungry,” she said. “I love them and feed them.”

Her needle has also served the needy on multiple missionary trips overseas to places such as Thailand, Guinea and Ecuador.

Davidson, who looks younger than 75, credits her faith with getting her through the rough spots in life, like her divorce in 1980 when she first turned to sewing to support herself in Denver. Her skill with a needle had earned her extra money since she was 17.

Her earliest memories of sewing go back to her mother and grandmother letting her run fabric through a treadle machine.

“I really didn’t sew seriously until I took sewing in the seventh grade and I learned to use patterns,” she said. “I was always the first one done with a project, and then I helped the other girls.”

As a young mother, Davidson perfected tailoring by making small suits for her son John to wear to church. She taught both of her girls to sew and one, Abigail Brown, runs a sewing business in Indiana.

Her other daughter, Hope Ranel, lives in Saint Ignatius and still sews.

“They both do alterations,” she said. “They worked for me as teenagers.”

Davidson ran her business in Denver for five years before following relatives in 1985 to the Flathead Valley, where she purchased The Perfect Fit located in the KM Building. In 1990, she moved into her current location in a white cottage tucked in off the alley behind Papa Murphy’s Pizza on Center Street.

“I could live here and have my shop,” she said.

Davidson sits behind a counter surrounded by her circa 1940 blind stitch machine, two sergers, a ’50s-era industrial leather sewing machine and her household Singer sewing machine that she purchased new in the ’60s. A pegboard on the wall holds a colorful collection of thread in various sizes.

From the beginning, she had no trouble attracting and keeping customers for her alterations and mending. Word of mouth proved her best marketing strategy.

“I don’t even have a listing in the telephone book,” she said.

In a small town like Kalispell, Davidson said people must tap their creativity to make a living in a small business. She expanded her mending to include all manner of cloth, including patching tents and other sporting goods.

Over the years, she tackled some tall orders like installing a zipper in the legs of Carhartt quilted pants for a man more than six feet tall.

“It weighed a ton,” she said with a laugh.   

Davidson lost count long ago of the hundreds of wedding and bridesmaid dresses she has altered over her career. She won’t miss patching backpacks, her least favorite job.

In retirement, she looks forward to pursuing favorite hobbies such as knitting, crocheting and making jewelry. The seamstress said she was counting the days to calling it quits and having time to visit her children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Davidson said she will miss her customers. She remembers only two people in all those decades that she asked not to come back.

She retires with no regrets about going into business for herself as a seamstress.

“It’s nice to get up in the morning and know you are going to enjoy what you do,” Davidson said.

People who would like to wish her well may attend a combined 75th birthday and retirement party planned for noon to 4 p.m. at the Woodland Park Pavilion on Saturday, June 30.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.