Jenny Doan is a prominent quilter and the face of Missouri Star Quilt Company. She is a woman who turned her hobby into a multimillion-dollar business. Doan has been called "The most famous quilter in the world" due to her over 350 YouTube tutorials that have been viewed more than 110 million times. In 2015, two of her children and their partner Dave Mifsud who handled the business end of Missouri Star Quilt Co. received the NationalSmall BusinessPersons of the Year award.
Doan had a first husband and together they had 2 children. Later they divorced. She and her second husband Ron married in 1980 and live in Hamilton, Missouri. Ron worked as a machinist with the Kansas City Star. Jenny has seven children and twenty-two grandchildren. Doan learned to sew with the 4-H Club youth organization at the age of ten. As a newlywed she sewed costumes for the local theater group, and after her children left home she took her first quilting class at the Grand RiverTechnical School in Chillicothe, Missouri. She is the published author of numerous articles and quilting patterns, and contributes to the company-owned quilting magazine, BLOCK. She has appeared on local radio and NBC news broadcasts, but most of her fame came because of the more than 550 YouTube videos through which she teaches quick and easy methods to make attractive quilts with precut fabrics.
Missouri Star Quilt Company
In 2008, Doan and her family and Dave Mifsud founded Missouri Star Quilt Company and Jenny began producing weekly tutorials on YouTube. The company was started with a longarm sewing machine in a dilapidated brick building in downtown Hamilton, Missouri serving as a shop. She utilizes the patchwork method of quiltmaking along with applique techniques. Today, Missouri Star Quilt Company processes over 30,000 orders each month for precut fabric and other quilting notions and has become the largest employer in Caldwell County, Missouri, employing over 300 people. The company also operates a retreat center for tourists, which was built in 2013 by combining two adjoining premises. Hamilton, with a population of 1,800, hosts between five and ten thousand visitors each month who come to meet Doan. According to Doan, the company's appeal is based on making quilting friendlier and more fun than ever. Visitors are taught how to use precut fabric to make a quilt in as little as a day, instead of months.
