Jenny Doan is an American

quilter Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. A ...

, author, and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

personality. She rose to prominence as the face of Missouri Star Quilt Company, the largest quilting supply vendor in the United States. Referred to as “The most famous quilter in the world,” her YouTube channel has surpassed over 210 million cumulative views, and she is regarded as a leading figure in the pre-cut quilting movement.

Career

Doan showed an interest in sewing from an early age, eventually learning to sew with the 4-H Club youth organization at the age of ten. She maintained her interest in sewing throughout her adolescence and carried that into adulthood, making costumes for the local theater group when she was a newlywed. In 2003, Doan took her first quilting class at the Grand River Technical School in

Chillicothe, Missouri Chillicothe is a city in the state of Missouri and the county seat of Livingston County, Missouri, United States. The population was 9,107 at the 2020 census. The name "Chillicothe" is Shawnee for "big town", and was named after their ''Chillico ...

. After the

2008 recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...

cost Doan and her husband most of their savings, two of Doan’s children were looking for ways for their parents to bring in additional money. They bought Doan a long arm quilting machine and set up a small business for her to sew together other people’s quilts. Demand was high and customers wanted additional fabric, so her son set up a website to sell additional materials. Business was slow, however, and a year later, Doan’s children suggested that she record quilting tutorials on YouTube. The videos taught viewers to make a quilt in a day using pre-cut materials, something Missouri Star Quilt Company specialized in. The videos turned Doan into a quilting celebrity and led to an increase in sales. Doan is a regular feature in MSQC’s monthly quilting magazine, ''BLOCK'', hosts trunk shows weekly in Hamilton, and makes appearances at quilting and crafting events around the United States.

Personal life

Jenny Doan (''née'' Fish) was born on June 11, 1957, to Franke and Deannie Fish in

San Luis Obispo, California San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly h ...

. Her father was a chemist and her mother was a homemaker and genealogist. At age 10 her family moved to

Spreckels, California Spreckels is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California, United States. Spreckels is located south of Salinas, at an elevation of . Its population was 692 at the 2020 cen ...

, so her father could be closer to Salinas, where her father had a job with the Smucker jam company. She grew up in the

Salinas Valley The Salinas Valley is one of the major valleys and most productive agricultural regions in California. It is located west of the San Joaquin Valley and south of San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley. The Salinas River, which geologicall ...

and

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica ...

area. In 1980, Jenny married Ronald Doan. The family remained in the Salinas area until 1995, when facing financial difficulties, Jenny and Ron decided to move to a more affordable area. Ron suggested moving to the Midwest, to which Jenny replied, “Where is that, exactly?” The family moved “sight unseen” to

Hamilton, Missouri Hamilton is a city in northern Caldwell County, Missouri, and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the United States. The population was 1,690 at the 2020 census. It is known as the hometown of James Cash Penney, who built a ...

, where Ron started working as a

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...

with the ''

Kansas City Star ''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and ...

'' and Jenny focused on taking care of the family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doan, Jenny People from Hamilton, Missouri People from Caldwell County, Missouri Retail company founders Living people 1957 births American women company founders American company founders Quilters People from Chillicothe, Missouri American video artists Women video artists American YouTubers People from Salinas, California 21st-century American women