For a startup that now employs more than 100 people, has thousands of YouTube followers and is changing the face of Main Street in their hometown, its beginning was pretty unassuming.

When Jenny Doan, a costume designer, moved from California to Hamilton, Missouri, it didn’t take her long to realize her craft wasn’t in high demand. So on others’ suggestions, Jenny took a quilting class–and she fell in love with it. To her, its creativity had no comparison.

Fast forward 20 years and many, many quilts later, and Jenny received a gift from her children that would change the trajectory of her life.

“The children were concerned about what I was going to do once they left home—I have to have something for my hands to do so I keep out of trouble—so they bought me a quilt machine,” she said.

But the gift came with a slight challenge: the 14-foot machine didn’t fit in her home. So like any sane person would do, she bought a building to house her new equipment. It was then that Jenny and her husband looked around at their new digs and realized something: they had started a company.

“We could finish people’s quilts in half the time that they were sending them out and waiting for them to be returned,” Jenny said. “So we just put a little ad in the local newspaper, and people starting coming.