I did some additional research on Colette Wolff and found some other articles about her in my Mom's files, so I thought I would add a little history to her profile. So this is what I discovered about this talented lady. As the story goes, when her legs were just long enough to reach the treadle on the old-fashioned sewing machine, Colette Wolff was taught to sew by her mother. As a teenager, she was making her own clothes and sewing and stuffing dolls and toys for gifts. She began making “improvements” in the magazine toy patterns she used, and started designing her own when she couldn’t find what she wanted among the patterns in print. By 1965, having taught herself the basics of 3-dimensional fabric design, she was selling the stuffed dolls and animals she designed and produced through fairs and shops. In 1966, she taught craft teaching and general sewing at the Women’s House of Detention in New York City. She then started to teach quilting in 1973 and from 1975 to 1980 she taught quiltmaking, soft toymaking, dollmaking, stitchery, and color and design at the Elder Craftsmen Special Project.
In 1980, Colette redesigned all teaching positions to concentrate her energies on the growth and management of “Platypus”, a direct mail catalog business she began in 1969 with a 9 cent classified ad and a borrowed mimeograph to print copies of the original doll patterns she offered in the ad.