Catherine DeClue, an 89-year-old resident at the Steelville Senior Living Center, has been sewing for as long as she can remember. What she can’t remember is how exactly she learned to do it.

DeClue recalls operating her grandmother’s old treadle sewing machine during her childhood in Homer, Louisiana. DeClue’s first sewing project, which she completed at just two or three years old, was a pair of children’s underwear. DeClue’s mother, like many mothers do, held onto the precious childhood artifact. One day, DeClue’s mom presented her with the undergarments she had sewn as a little girl, “which looked like a two-year-old had made them,” DeClue said. “The stitching was way off.”

DeClue’s needlework has improved a great deal in the over eight decades since.

“I’ve been sewing most of my life,” said DeClue, who, over the years, has taken on sewing work from clients across Missouri, from St. Louis to Steelville. “I was never taught. My mom was not a good seamstress,” said DeClue, “but I’m pretty good.”

DeClue’s clients, friends and family would say that “pretty good” is an understatement.

Rockii Finnell, a medical technician at Steelville Senior Living Center, described DeClue as a “cloth artist.”

DeClue is the Steelville Senior Living Center’s resident expert on sewing and stitching. Whenever a resident, nurse or even visitors need a piece of clothing repaired, modified, or designed, they often seek out DeClue.

“She’s just very known for her talent to make whatever she invents. She’s very skilled, and I think she’s a creative just by nature,” Finnell said.

Her work quilting and sewing has won DeClue prizes and recognition in competitions across the state. Her latest accolade was a blue-ribbon win at the Crawford County State Fair earlier this summer, which she won for a colorful quilted coat. DeClue made the coat for Finnell, who commissioned DeClue to make her the one-of-a-kind coat after noticing her talent as a seamstress.

“She was working on a quilt that I really liked, and I thought a quilted coat would look so good,” Finnell said. “So, I commissioned this lovely lady, and it turned out more than I expected.”

For her part, DeClue spent most of this year’s spring season transforming colorful scraps of this-and-that, some from her own collection of fabric, and some special pieces given to her by Finnell, into a brightly colored winter coat.

Stitch by stitch, the coat became a mosaic of bright colors, contrasting and complementary patterns, and special patches that speak to Finnell and DeClue’s personalities. The coat has a set of Harry Potter-themed patches which Finnell said “expresses my nerdiness,” and patches featuring patriotic symbols like Old Glory.

DeClue’s coat project became much-discussed at Steelville Senior Living Center. Frequent visits from residents and nurses, curious about DeClue’s progress on the coat, turned into a constant stream of pleasant interruptions that made the project take longer than normal.

“Everybody here was all excited to pop in, and very curious and nosy to just see what this is,” DeClue said.

The coat reminded DeClue of the Dolly Parton tune Coat of Many Colors, in which Dolly reminisces about a beloved patchwork coat her mother made for her from whatever rags or scraps of fabric she could find.  The song became an earworm for DeClue as she worked on her own coat of many colors.

“I hummed it through the whole (expletive deleted) thing, putting it together,” DeClue said. “I couldn’t help but hum it all the way.”

DeClue was so inspired by the legendary country ballad that in July she wrote Dolly a letter about the sewing project, and included a picture of the coat that she made. DeClue sent the letter in July, ahead of the Crawford County State Fair. Parton passed away just a month later.

DeClue likes to think that Dolly received and read the letter, although she has yet to receive a reply from the beloved country singer. When she first sent the letter, DeClue was eager to hear back from Dolly, but knows that it’s not likely at this point.

“Chances are, she probably did get it,” DeClue said. “I was hoping to hear back from her. I think she would have loved it.”

Over the eight decades DeClue has spent sewing, her creations have become cherished relics in homes of friends and family across the country.

Of the colorful quilt jacket that DeClue made for her, “I’ll keep it forever,” Finnell said.

DeClue also made items for some well-known Missourians. She crafted dresses for  Channel 4 News veteran Marc Cox’s wedding, from whom she still gets Christmas and birthday cards.

DeClue’s nephew, now in his 50s, still holds on to a stuffed monkey that she made for him when he was three years old.

“He’s dragged that thing from Michigan to St. Louis and different places each time they’ve moved. He still has his monkey,” DeClue said.

One of DeClue’s most memorable knit inventions was commissioned nearly a decade ago when she lived at Cuba Village. A nurse approached DeClue and asked if she could sew a chicken diaper for her indoor pet chicken.

“A chicken diaper? I had no idea what a chicken diaper was,” said DeClue. “So my imagination picks it up.”

DeClue said she worked out an elegant chicken-sized white cloth diaper with ruffles and the works. Then, something unexpected happened.

“So she brought her chicken to work so I could see how the diaper looked on her,” said DeClue. “Well, it turned out to be a rooster. Here, I put ruffles on it thinking it was a hen.”

As the craft of hand-sewing has shifted from a common skill used for routine household maintenance and repairs to primarily a creative hobby, DeClue is hopeful that younger generations will continue learning hand-sewing skills.

“I like to think maybe it’s going to get woke up again, but people don’t sew as much as they used to,” said DeClue, who added that patience and persistence are important to learning the craft. “I learned an easy way: from experience. Doing it over and over again.”

For DeClue, sewing is as important to her in her twilight years as it was in her youth – from the childhood clothes lovingly stitched for her sister and brothers, to the vibrant patchwork winter coat she made for Finnell.

These days, DeClue sews simply because it makes her, and others, happy.

“It always did make me happy. It makes me feel good,” DeClue said.

She added that, to her, happiness is a choice.

“I can make somebody with a sour puss on their face lift their spirits a little bit. Because if you’re grumpy all the time, the only thing you’re gonna be is grumpy all the time,” she said, echoing a view of happiness similar to one expressed by Dolly in Coat of Many Colors about poverty. “I tried to make them see that one is only poor if they choose to be. Now I know we had no money, but I was rich as I could be in my coat of many colors my Mama made for me.”