Jane Packer has been sewing since she was a youngster growing up in Hungry Horse. Her father, Jesse Lynch was a house mover — he moved Hungry Horse Dam-era houses out of town for the Forest Service and others, so the family called the Dam town home.

Packer started sewing her own doll clothes and clothes for herself on a trundle sewing machine her mother bought for her. She still remembers going to the Park Mercantile in Columbia Falls to buy the machine.

“I thought I died and gone to heaven,” she said.

Later in life, she even sewed her own wedding dress. Packer made a career with the Forest Service — she was the office manager for the Hungry Horse offices for years until the budgeting department was moved to New Mexico.

So in order to keep her job with the agency, which was budget oriented, she had to leave in 2005. Packer and her husband, Bill, moved back to the valley in 2018. Bill also worked for the Forest Service in both fire and recreation.

She made her first quilt in 1983 — a radiant star. Bill and friends helped pick out the colors.

At first she didn’t think it was going to look good.

“Why did I let all these people pick out these colors?” she thought. But when she put it together, “It just popped.”

She’s been quilting ever since and today the daylight basement of her Kalispell home is a quilter’s haven, complete with various sewing machines and tables and even a long arm machine — a rather large sewing machine that’s designed to sew patterns into large quilts.

Packer is this year’s featured quilter for the annual Teakettle Quilter show from 9 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. April 15 at the new Glacier Gateway Elementary School.

Over the years Packer has refined her craft — her quilts are exquisitely crafted and brilliant with colors, particular purple hues. She adores star shapes and patterns that are geometrically close to perfection.

“Points kind of draw me in,” she said.

She finds quilting a therapeutic way to release the tension of the day.

“When you were stressed you could put the pedal to the metal,” she said.

While she has several sewing machines, one of her favorites is a vintage Singer Featherweight she bought for $200 from a shop back East while visiting relatives. Today the machine goes for $500.

“I still take it to Friday shows,” she said.

She said she really enjoys being part of the Teakettle Guild.

“I’m their treasurer now,” she said. The Guild does a lot of projects for the Columbia Falls community, including donations of quilts to the Food Bank, the fire department and the Montana Veterans Home. They also sewed tote bags for kindergarteners.

The guild has about 70 members all of them women save for one man, who is a very good quilter, she noted.

What makes a good quilt?

“It’s the love you put into it,” she said.

Her advice to novice quilters? Stay away from free computer generated patterns online. They’re not often vetted. She said the best thing is to visit a local quilt shop and use their patterns and join a local guild.

Packer will have a host of quilts on display at the April 15 show. Admission is free, but a donation to the Columbia Falls Food Bank is appreciated.

You can watch an interview with Packer at the Hungry Horse news YoutTube Channel. Just search YouTube for Hungry Horse News.