Sew precise - Retired math teacher’s quilts on display at Arts & Heritage Center

After 45 years teaching Math, Sue Westegaard is using her love of precision to create intricate quilts.

Westegaard, who taught Montgomery-Lonsdale students from 1971 until 1996 and went on to finish her career in Hopkins, is now retired. She lives in Shakopee and enjoys hunting for unique fabrics and piecing them together to create quilts, using her keen mathematician’s eye.

“There’s satisfaction in getting things to work out,” she stated. “In math, you get an answer. With quilting, you get a beautiful, complete design.”

A collection of Westegaard’s intricate quilts is now on display at the Arts and Heritage Center of Montgomery, which is located at 206 1st St. North in Montgomery. The exhibit is free to view during the center’s regular hours, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and 9 a.m. until noon on Saturdays.

Westegaard’s desire for exactness is evident in her quilting in the form of crisp edges and careful, measured stitches.

“My mom taught me how to sew, and I did at least one sewing project when I was young for 4H… I think I got a red ribbon for it, an apron, I believe,” she stated. “It wasn’t until years later that I started quilting.”

She created her first quilt while she was in...

To see more on this story pick up the June 9, 2022 print edition of The New Prague Times or the Montgomery Messenger.