Her posh tops fight free sheets to win.

• Position: Elizabeth Norris and hand bell table covers - Brief Article

When Elizabeth Norris attended hand-bell festivals with her music-minister husband about 30 years ago, she noticed -- as a home-economics teacher might -- that many groups covered their bell tables with old sheets. That didn't seem fitting, Norris thought, in a setting where musicians wear white gloves and dignified expressions while ringing $15,000 sets of English bells.

But it wasn't until the early '80s that Norris, a shy Texan with a bachelor's in home ec from Lamar University and a Sling Blade-like habit of ending statements with an "mm-hmm," thought she could make money making tablecloths. After stints as a regional child nutrition coordinator for the state and a multilevel marketer selling Shaklee Corp. food supplements, she started talking about her idea for a tablecloth business to hand-bell choir directors and the two major U.S. hand-bell manufacturers, Plumsteadville, Pa.-based Malmark Inc. and Sellersville, Pa.-based Schulmerich Carillons Inc.

Buoyed by those discussions, Norris, now 57, started Custom Coverings/Embroidery by Norris Inc. in 1985. For four years, she ran the company from her Waynesville home, selling Shaklee on the side and cluttering nearly every room with sewing equipment and fabric until the company...