These BR-based needlepoint businesses create canvas designs for local stitchers
Get your stitch fix with these locally made canvases 🧵🪡
Louisiana is known for its arts scene, and Baton Rouge is no exception. From live music nearly every night to art markets popping up on any given weekend, it is clear that the Capital Region has a deep appreciation for creativity.
However, an art form that may fly under many people’s radar is needlepoint, a craft that some may associate with their grandma’s throw pillows but is actually becoming increasingly popular, with many small businesses here in Baton Rouge putting their own spin on the art.
Merritt Walker, owner and founder of Merritt Walker Designs, grew up around the craft. Both Walker’s grandmother and mother were needlepointers, and she was able to pick up a few tricks of the trade from them.
“My grandmother taught me how to do a French knot, which is a type of stitch, and I have this distinct memory of her teaching me how to do that as a kid,” Walker says.
She didn’t pick it back up until about two years ago, and she only started her needlepoint canvas business this past April. However, it wasn’t simply her love of needlepointing that inspired her to create Merritt Walker Designs.
As a marine scientist by day, Walker pulls a lot of inspiration for her designs from the marine life she studies. Her first foray into fish designs was when she decided to make her husband a needlepoint belt.
“It’s a superstition. Some will say that you only needlepoint a belt for your husband, just because it takes a lot of time and effort, and it’s really expensive,” Walker says. “So you don’t want to do it for a boyfriend who’s going to break up with you.”
Because her husband is also a marine scientist, Walker wanted to make him something to commemorate his doctoral degree. She had trouble finding designs online that had accurate-looking fish, so she made her own.
This fish motif is seen throughout the canvases she offers through her business. Her online shop features two collections: The Kai Collection is inspired by Hawaii’s sea life, with brightly-colored yellowfin tuna, reef triggerfish and humpback whales, and the Gulf Collection draws from closer to home, with Gulf fish like red snapper, tarpon and sheepshead.
Walker says she is excited to be featured at needlepoint shops around the country, including The Elegant Needle in Baton Rouge, and that despite her modest expectations going into Merritt Walker Designs, she is happy to see so many people connecting with her art. “It’s been blown out of the water,” she says.
While Walker pulls from her professional career to transport customers to an underwater world, Taylor Steilman uses needlepoint to connect to the Baton Rouge community.
Steilman, founder of Maggie Lou Needlepoint, originally hails from New York but moved to Louisiana three years ago for graduate school. Having never lived in the South before, Steilman began using needlepoint to connect to different places around Baton Rouge as she settled into her new home.
“I feel like I’ve had to make myself a home wherever I go,” Steilman says, “and a lot of my designs are like places that make Baton Rouge feel like home to me.”
Some of these designs include iconic Baton Rouge sights, like a Tiger’s head, the Fred’s Bar moose logo and the Superior Grill sign.
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Even the name of her business, Maggie Lou Needlepoint, is an ode to her new home. Maggie was her great-grandmother’s name, and it is also a nickname for the magnolia flower. Lou is short for Louisiana. “So it could kind of be like a family name, but also magnolia and also Louisiana,” says Steilman.
Steilman designs all of her canvases herself using platforms like Adobe and Stitchly, an app to help artists create cross-stitch designs. Once the designs are made, Steilman hand-paints each intersection on the canvas, which can add up to thousands.
“A Superior [Grill] canvas can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what’s going on around me,” Steilman says. “If I’m super focused and I’m cranking out five Superiors in a row, I could do it in 30 minutes.”
After starting an Etsy account about a year and a half ago, Steilman decided she was ready to have her own website, launching Maggie Lou Needlepoint through Shopify just this past month. She says that though managing her own business can be a lot to juggle at once, she feels her hard work pays off when she gets to interact with customers at markets and social events.
“The most rewarding [part is] seeing Maggie Lou out in the wild,” she says.
Where to find other Baton Rouge-based needlepoint canvas makers
Baton Rouge is home to two needlepoint shops, The Red Stitch at 7517 Jefferson Hwy. and The Elegant Needle at 6641 Government St. There are also many local creators who own their own needlepoint businesses:
Gracie Mae Manthey, a veterinary student at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, started her Etsy shop Stitchin’ on the Bayou over the summer after working at The Red Stitch. As she transitioned from summer to the school year, she learned how to print canvases herself rather than needing to hand-paint every one, which allows her to sell her original designs at a more affordable price. From Tiger pride to New Orleans jazz, Manthey has designs for everyone in Louisiana.
FigB Designs is another Baton Rouge-based business. Her canvases do not follow one strict theme but instead are a mix of Louisiana-inspired designs, things she loves and custom orders. Lately, she has been working on designs of the different sorority houses at LSU. FigB Designs sells mainly through social media but also has some work at The Elegant Needle.
Not Your Nana’s Needlepoint was founded by sisters Ansley and MC Upton, both students at LSU. Their designs include the fun-colored Sunglasses Collection and the Valentine’s Day-themed XOXO Collection, which includes kiss lips and a pink taxi, and more. To shop Not Your Nana’s Needlepoint, visit their website.
