Threading the Needle

The TikTok generation is going crazy for needlepoint, and The Needlepoints North is helping drive the trend in northern Michigan

During the darkness of the COVID-19 pandemic, an intriguing trend emerged. “Grandma hobbies”—old-fashioned pastimes like sewing, mahjong, baking, and embroidery—surged in popularity. Such activities offered a comforting diversion, helped users learn a new skill, and provided a tactile, analog alternative to a digital-dominated landscape.

One such hobby that caught fire with millennials and Gen Z was needlepoint. An ancient craft dating back to the Egyptians—with resurgences during the Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and post-World War II eras—needlepoint is a type of embroidery work in which yarn or thread is stitched through a stiff canvas. Canvases can have an endless array of designs painted or printed on them, a type of “paint-by-numbers” approach that allows users to match their thread color to the design.

Step into The Needlepoints North shop on Woodmere Avenue in Traverse City, and you’ll quickly see why the creative options on display have captured the attention of a new generation. While needlepoint in the past tended to focus on a limited number of designs (flowers have been standard for centuries), and a small selection of thread types and colors, the choices today are endless.

“There are now probably 200 different threads, and each one can have 200, 300, or 400 colors,” says store owner Becki Barnwell. “The breadth of your palette is so much bigger now.”

So are the canvas choices, not only in material but in design. Search “needlepoint” on Etsy or TikTok and you’ll find canvases ranging from cheeky, obscenity-laced messages to pop culture memes to customized offerings featuring your pet, business logo, or family cottage.

Barnwell designs many of her own canvases at The Needlepoints North. Want to make a Christmas ornament featuring The Dairy Lodge? A framed embroidery of Mode’s Bum Steer? A little Frenchies Famous keepsake? All those Traverse City institutions are available as canvases.

A Long Time Coming

Barnwell, 75, has a background as an artist: She was an art school student in her twenties when a friend was in a bicycle accident on Mackinac Island, with the two passing time together during the recovery by learning to needlepoint.

“It was just so relaxing,” Barnwell says. “It’s a very rhythmic, repetitive motion. When you get into it, especially doing a basket weave on a big background, it just rolls along. Pretty soon three hours have gone by.”

Barnwell continued to stay involved with needlepoint groups on Mackinac Island, eventually painting multiple canvases and designing kits for other hobbyists. She didn’t think of it as a career, however. She married, had three children, and moved to Pennsylvania. “I was just too darn busy to keep a business going,” she says. “I literally dragged garbage bags of yarn around with me for years.”

When Barnwell did turn her attention later in life to the possibility of starting a needlepoint business, a store wasn’t her first idea. “Initially I thought I’d have a travel club for stitchers,” she says. “The idea for a shop hadn’t entered my mind yet.”

Travel clubs have become big business in the needlepoint industry, ranging from group retreats to workshops to customized vacation getaways with itineraries centered around group stitching, shopping, and socializing.

“Having retreats is a fun part of the business because it gathers people to your community,” Barnwell explains. “People will come from all over the United States if they hear the word retreat.”

When her first retreat on her long-time stomping grounds of Mackinac Island sold out in just a few days, Barnwell realized how strong the appetite was for more offerings in the needlepoint community. That helped convince her to launch The NeedlePoints North shop in early 2026, initially located on the second floor of the Hannah Lay building on Front Street in downtown Traverse City.

A Local Shop

Barnwell opened the shop with business partner Susie Wipperman, with the duo immediately finding an audience for their products and events. Those include beginner needlepoint classes, which The NeedlePoints North continues to offer on an ongoing basis.

“We’ve taught almost 200 people how to stitch since we opened,” says Barnewell. Almost all those participants have been women, with the majority in a younger age demographic, she says.

The NeedlePoints North also hosts quarterly Sip & Stitch events at rotating locations around town, with admission typically including a drink ticket, snacks, giveaway drawings, and “two hours of pure, social crafting bliss.” The events often draw about 40 attendees. Also popular is the company’s StitchClub TC, which meets every Monday from 10:30am-12:30pm in the Park Place Hotel dining room. Attendees, ranging in number from eight to 20, stitch and enjoy lunch together. All skill levels are welcome, and attendance is free (guests buy their own lunches).

Buoyed by its early success, The NeedlePoints North relocated to a new space at 739 Woodmere Avenue in May. The shop is the only one of its kind north of Grand Rapids, Barnwell says, attracting customers from locations including Harbor Springs, Petoskey, and St. Ignace.

The shop has a “huge inventory” for a store of its size, Barnwell adds, with over 100 different designers featured. Stitchers can turn their canvases into almost any kind of product: luggage tags, pillows, bookmarks, belts, purses, wallets, ornaments, you name it. The store offers “finishing” classes a few times per year, which teach stitchers how to turn their completed canvases into these different types of products.

On the low end, luggage tag canvases typically cost $35-40, ornament canvases $80-$100, pillow canvases as much as $400-$500. The skyrocketing popularity of needlepoint has contributed to its cost.

“Canvas is not only very scarce, it’s expensive,” explains Barnwell. Still, while she acknowledges needlepoint isn’t always a cheap hobby, she compares the “hour of enjoyment” a stitcher will get out of one canvas with the cost of a hobby like golf with its clubs, outfits, and course fees.

“And what do you have at the end of a round of golf?” she says. “Maybe a good story. But my kids will have this,” she adds, showing off a completed canvas.

That tangible takeaway—a final product one has created with one’s own hands—is a key part of the draw for new stitchers, Barnwell says. She runs the shop these days (Wipperman has stepped back) and often teaches beginners, continuing to advise them as they return to the store for materials and slowly develop their skills.

“Young people say they love it because it gets them off their phone,” Barnwell says. “Even I spend too much time on Instagram. It’s way too easy to get sucked in. But this makes you focus. Some people ask how long the needlepoint trend is going to last, but others say it will be as long we have young people and creative minds.”

With more events on deck and new stitching retreats planned for the future—Barnwell hopes to bring one soon to Traverse City—The NeedlePoints North shows no signs of slowing down.

“There’s a real sense of community here, which is what I enjoy,” Barnwell says. “It’s not really a job to me. It’s a fun responsibility.”

Visit The Needlepoints North at 739 Woodmere Ave. in Traverse City. Find the class schedule and more information at TheNeedlePointsNorth.com.

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