While it may be true that you cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, you could make an adorable teddy bear from an old flannel shirt. Well, you could if you were Sherry Attard.

This Columbia Falls artisan loves to root around rummage sales and thrift shops for clothes, linens, and blankets that others deem worthless but to her merit rescue. Where someone else sees merely a past-prime jacket, Sherry envisions a cuddly teddy bear just waiting to emerge.

“I like to take a used piece of clothing or coat that has been discarded and see if it can be recycled into something that someone would want to care about to keep or give as a gift,” says Sherry, who finds that each cast-off item “speaks to her” of what type of bear it will become.

This talented woman has spent most of her life working with fabric both old and new. Her mother taught her to use a sewing machine when she was in the third grade and in two years, the budding tailor could follow dress patterns and make her own clothes. From then on, Sherry has never been far away from a needle and thread.

She created her first bears for her three sons while they were growing up. All of them now have children of their own, who have also played with teddy bears Sherry has sewn just for them. Since she began to design and stitch stuffed animals back in 1988, Sherry estimates she has produced several thousand teddy bears.

“I started out by wanting to make some extra money for Christmas and decided to rent a table at a local bazaar,” recalls Sherry, who now has an active year-round business. “My mom used to sell her handmade doll clothes to earn Christmas money; that’s where I got the idea. I initially chose teddy bears because they seemed to be universally popular. So I found a pattern in a magazine for a bear that I thought looked cute and tried it.”

From the eager response of her first customers, Sherry knew immediately that she had found her niche. However, in retrospect, she admits those early bruins would not pass muster by her current exacting standards. Wisely, she allowed herself to improve as she handcrafted bear after bear, progressed beyond her mistakes, and began to master her trade.

“It was an evolution of learning to do things better,” notes Sherry. The hallmarks of her bears are that they are jointed (their arms and legs move) and laden with character from their hand-embroidered noses to their soft paws. Sherry creates those charming faces by taking time to play with each bear’s features until she gets something that appeals to her.

She has made bears as short as one inch and as tall as 36 inches. However, her average bruin stands 14 inches high. While Sherry’s smaller bears must be hand-sewn, her larger ones can be partially sewn by machine. That makes them easier for her to fashion though she is quick to add that there is nothing hard about making teddy bears… except perhaps for the clean up after she puts away her scissors for the night.

Nowadays, Sherry sells her whimsical creations at craft shows and farmers’ markets in the Flathead and through her web sites. Her reputation has spread by word of mouth and she receives orders from around the state. In addition, she sells to an international market.

“It turns out that people from all over the world - from Germany, England, and Canada - like teddy bears as much as Americans do,” notes Sherry, who was surprised to discover that her bruins appealed more to adults than to children. According to Sherry, unlike their parents or grandparents, kids do not run to the bears when they see them.

“I think they have to be educated to appreciate them because kids today are so interested in electronic things. For adults, teddy bears bring back childhood memories and they want to share those memories,” remarks Sherry. “People who grew up with teddy bears want to pass along that part of their childhood to those they love.”

One of the most poignant ways people are keeping alive the teddy bear legacy is through Sherry’s Memory Bears. She creates unique designs for each of these made-to-order bears, which are always constructed from nostalgic clothing or quilts with special meaning to a family. Over the years Sherry has fashioned Memory Bears from military and work uniforms, mink stoles, aprons, wedding gowns, and hunting pants to name just a few of the items customers have given her to carry out her commissions.

Sherry’s aunt, who lived near Choteau, gave the doll-maker her first order for a Memory Bear a decade ago when she asked if Sherry could make a teddy bear out of a mid-calf length muskrat coat her late husband had bought for her.

“Originally, it was a fancy coat - very warm. But as the elbows wore out and it tattered around the edges, my aunt wore it only to feed the calves on their ranch,” recalls Sherry, who figured the coat was around 35 years old by the time she received it. “My aunt’s grandson had grown up seeing her in this coat, so it had sentimental value for the whole family,” continues Sherry. “Since there was still some fairly nice fur left in the body of the coat, I was able to make a 14-inch teddy bear from it. The boy’s mom liked it so much she asked if there was enough fur left over to make another bear for her. And there was.”

Since then, Sherry has continued to fulfill requests for these heartwarming bears, which comprise about half of her business and provide a seemingly endless source of creative challenges. One remarkable commission came from a Havre family preparing for a big reunion. They delivered to Sherry three boxes filled with shirts, bathrobes, skirts, and pants from which they wanted 46 bears. Much to the clan’s delight, Sherry filled eight large boxes with bears made from the salvaged fabric.

Although she does this labor-intensive work for pay, Sherry receives another reward that makes her job all the sweeter.

“People truly appreciate something that is handcrafted and not mass produced. When they get emotional and tear up when they first see their Memory Bear,” says Sherry, “I know it really means something to them.”

For more information, visit www.sherrysbears.com, www.sherrya135.etsy.com or call 406-892-5990.