Kathy Pinna
Interview with mother Jennie about Missouri Star Quilt Company
"My husband Ron and I grew up in California and that’s where we started our family. We love our home state, but with each passing year it became more and more expensive to live there. Then, out of nowhere, our youngest son, Josh, developed a tumor on his lymph gland. Thankfully, he made it through, but the growing medical bills nearly bankrupted us. We decided to make some changes to help our family thrive and the time felt right to pack up and begin a new life across the country. We literally pulled out a map, pointed to a spot somewhere in the Midwest and said, “That’s where we’ll go!” It’s clear to us now that this seemingly random choice wasn’t random at all—I know that we were guided to the right place for us. With a mix of worry and excitement, we packed up our seven kids and drove across the country to rural Missouri over 20 years ago. At that time we never dreamed that we’d be in for such an incredible adventure! I truly believe that life doesn’t always turn out the way you imagine it—sometimes it’s even better!"
The Missouri Star Quilt Company started in Hamilton, a town of about 1,500 charming people. Like many small American towns, employment was scarce—many of our friends and neighbors had to travel long distances to work or leave the area altogether to find employment. It was disheartening to see the town that we had grown to love filled with abandoned buildings, falling into disrepair. For years, my husband Ron had traveled an hour and a half each way to work as a mechanic for the Kansas City Star newspaper. He worked long hours and many night shifts to support our family. Sadly in 2008, we lost much of our retirement savings in the stock market crash, like so many others. To make matters worse, the newspaper industry was declining and we feared that Ron would soon lose his job. We were unprepared for retirement as every last dime had gone into raising our family and we weren’t sure what we were going to do next.
The idea to begin Missouri Star Quilt Company came out of the blue. Previously, I had designed costumes for the theatre, but when we moved to Missouri the theatre scene wasn’t very big—here quilting reigns supreme! I decided to take a local quilting class and was immediately hooked. I quickly began stitching up quilts for friends and family from whatever fabric I had on hand. It was so much fun! Then, one day I brought in some quilts to be machine quilted at a local quilt shop and I was told I’d have to wait a year for it to be finished. Two of my children, Alan and Sarah, told me, “Mom, if you have to wait that long to have your quilts quilted, there’s gotta be a lot of demand. You should start your own machine quilting business!
”The idea of sewing quilts for a living thrilled me—they say that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. So, in November of 2008, on a shoestring budget, we bought a small brick building in Hamilton that would fit a longarm quilting machine and started the Missouri Star Quilt Company! At first, we only offered machine quilting services and sold a few quilt fabrics and quilting supplies. Little did we know that within a few short years, we’d be offering over 30,000 bolts of fabric, along with hundreds of our own quilting patterns, quilt kits, our very own quilt magazine called BLOCK, and the world’s largest selection of precut quilting fabrics!
Shortly after setting up our small shop, we realized that we wanted to take our new business online. My son, Alan, teamed up with his best friend, David Mifsud, to get the business going. They had become friends while volunteering as missionaries in Kiev, Ukraine, and had always dreamed of going into business together. With Alan's experience running tech-startups out west, David's financial and marketing background, and Sarah’s knowledge of the quilt industry, we had the perfect ingredients to begin our online quilting business. I helped run the quilt shop with my daughters, Sarah and Natalie, while Alan and David focused their efforts online.
Those early days were long, with many sleepless nights (and plenty of countertop lip sync dance parties to keep things fun when the going got tough!). Back then, with virtually no money for advertising, we relied entirely on our creativity and ingenuity to help our small company grow. My son asked me if I wouldn’t mind filming some quilt tutorials to get our name out there and I responded, “Sure! … What’s a tutorial?” I soon found myself in front of the camera, teaching quilting techniques to a tiny handful of viewers. That first video, like a small stone, produced ripples and became the start of something amazing.
The Missouri Star Quilt Company started in Hamilton, a town of about 1,500 charming people. Like many small American towns, employment was scarce—many of our friends and neighbors had to travel long distances to work or leave the area altogether to find employment. It was disheartening to see the town that we had grown to love filled with abandoned buildings, falling into disrepair. For years, my husband Ron had traveled an hour and a half each way to work as a mechanic for the Kansas City Star newspaper. He worked long hours and many night shifts to support our family. Sadly in 2008, we lost much of our retirement savings in the stock market crash, like so many others. To make matters worse, the newspaper industry was declining and we feared that Ron would soon lose his job. We were unprepared for retirement as every last dime had gone into raising our family and we weren’t sure what we were going to do next.
The idea to begin Missouri Star Quilt Company came out of the blue. Previously, I had designed costumes for the theatre, but when we moved to Missouri the theatre scene wasn’t very big—here quilting reigns supreme! I decided to take a local quilting class and was immediately hooked. I quickly began stitching up quilts for friends and family from whatever fabric I had on hand. It was so much fun! Then, one day I brought in some quilts to be machine quilted at a local quilt shop and I was told I’d have to wait a year for it to be finished. Two of my children, Alan and Sarah, told me, “Mom, if you have to wait that long to have your quilts quilted, there’s gotta be a lot of demand. You should start your own machine quilting business!
”The idea of sewing quilts for a living thrilled me—they say that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. So, in November of 2008, on a shoestring budget, we bought a small brick building in Hamilton that would fit a longarm quilting machine and started the Missouri Star Quilt Company! At first, we only offered machine quilting services and sold a few quilt fabrics and quilting supplies. Little did we know that within a few short years, we’d be offering over 30,000 bolts of fabric, along with hundreds of our own quilting patterns, quilt kits, our very own quilt magazine called BLOCK, and the world’s largest selection of precut quilting fabrics!
Shortly after setting up our small shop, we realized that we wanted to take our new business online. My son, Alan, teamed up with his best friend, David Mifsud, to get the business going. They had become friends while volunteering as missionaries in Kiev, Ukraine, and had always dreamed of going into business together. With Alan's experience running tech-startups out west, David's financial and marketing background, and Sarah’s knowledge of the quilt industry, we had the perfect ingredients to begin our online quilting business. I helped run the quilt shop with my daughters, Sarah and Natalie, while Alan and David focused their efforts online.
Those early days were long, with many sleepless nights (and plenty of countertop lip sync dance parties to keep things fun when the going got tough!). Back then, with virtually no money for advertising, we relied entirely on our creativity and ingenuity to help our small company grow. My son asked me if I wouldn’t mind filming some quilt tutorials to get our name out there and I responded, “Sure! … What’s a tutorial?” I soon found myself in front of the camera, teaching quilting techniques to a tiny handful of viewers. That first video, like a small stone, produced ripples and became the start of something amazing.
