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As a little girl, Elaine grew up watching her
grandmother stitching hand-appliqued quilts during the cold, Minnesota
winter nights. All the piles of sorted shapes, colors and fabrics
fascinated her even then. When she was 9, Elaine joined a 4-H group
and signed up for a sewing class. Her leader allowed her to come over
every day during the summer and on Saturdays throughout the school
year, to sew on her old treadle sewing machine. Within a couple of
years, Elaine was sewing her own clothes and had begun tackling
tailoring. As a high school graduation gift, she received her first
sewing machine from her parents. While pursuing her degree in clinical
dietetics, there was little time to spare for sewing. However, Elaine
did make her first quilt, for her younger sister, who was going off to
nursing school.
Early in her dietetics career, Elaine lived in Ardmore, OK, where a
new quilt shop was opening. She immediately signed up for classes and
almost became a fixture at the store. She was hooked! Soon, she was
teaching classes and learning all she could about piecing and quilting
techniques and the latest tools.
Throughout the next fifteen years, Elaine fell in love, married, was
blessed with three active sons and kept advancing in her dietetics
career. By 1995, she was a full-time neonatal nutritionist at the
local children's hospital and a busy wife and mother.
The seeds for The Quilted Closet were planted at Thanksgiving, 1995.
Elaine and sister, Laurel, were chatting about the possibilities of
business ownership, as Laurel was already established with one of her
own. Elaine wanted a quilted, hooded jacket so she designed her first
pattern, the Woodland Hooded Jacket with a hand-carved Tree Zipper
Pull. April, 1996, saw her at her first Quilt Market, alone and very
scared. Her pattern line now consisted of four hooded jackets and four
zipper- pulls.
She hasn't looked back since the overwhelming success of that first
market, and the pattern line now is well over fifty patterns, four
books, fabric kits, shop kits and fifteen zipper pulls. The Quilted
Closet® has always been home-based, allowing Elaine to have
flexibility with her family. The Sewing Studio is located upstairs and
is where Elaine designs her patterns and fabrics. The offices and
warehouse are on the lower level of her home, at times bursting at the
seams.
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