Photography by Julia D’Agostino
When Krista LeRay was a student at the University of Kentucky, she fell in love with the needlepoint belts that were popular with her Southern classmates. “They called them ‘break-up belts’ at the time, because you stitched them for your boyfriend and, in college, relationships often don’t last,” LeRay explains. “Stitching a belt takes a long time and, by the time you finished, you had usually broken up.” LeRay decided instead to make a belt for herself and fell in love with needlepointing. What started out as a new hobby would eventually become a successful business—one that continues to grow with the opening of Penny Linn, her new needlepoint shop located in Rowayton.
A PANDEMIC PIVOT
After college, LeRay moved to Manhattan to work in social media at Major League Baseball. “When I moved to New York in 2013, I kind of dropped needlepointing because it wasn’t this cool thing,” she says jokingly. She later picked it up again after getting engaged in 2018, knowing her fiancé was worth the time and effort it would take to stitch him a belt.
When the pandemic struck, she found it difficult to find materials. “The pandemic really affected the needlepoint industry in terms of getting canvases,” she says. “The manufacturer of the canvases wasn’t working, and the painting houses weren’t working—everything was shut down.” That’s when LeRay decided to start painting her own canvases. She began by painting for her own personal use and then started posting her creations on Instagram. Demand was so great that she decided to start a website. She spent six months hand-painting canvases in her New York City apartment and sold out her entire inventory within the first two hours of launching the site.
CONNECTICUT CALLING
The pandemic was also the catalyst for another major change in LeRay’s life: a move from Midtown West to Fairfield County. Her in-laws’ house in Westchester was a welcome escape from navigating COVID restrictions in a New York City apartment building. While the couple put bids on multiple homes in both Westchester and Fairfield Counties, they ended up settling in Westport. “And then, as the story goes, got a house, got a car, got a baby—the full suburban life,” she jokes.
Moving to the suburbs also meant more room for her growing business. She found a space in Westport where she could operate ecommerce shipping and a have small showroom for retail shopping, by appointment only. But Penny Linn soon outgrew that space as well and LeRay had difficulty finding a larger space in Westport that worked. Fortunately, a perfect spot in Rowayton had just opened up on Rowayton Avenue, with plenty of space for a full retail showroom and a booming ecommerce business—not to mention a gorgeous view of the Five Mile River.
SHOP ’ TIL YOU DROP
“We create all our designs in-house, says LeRay. “The shop represents about 15 different designers under its collective.” That includes LeRay, who is (of course) the designer of the Penny Linn line that the shop carries. The variety of designers means a wide range of canvases to choose from, each one painted by hand.
The colorful walls of the new shop are Instagram-worthy—a rainbow of threads in every size and material you can imagine. They sell all the tools you need to get started stitching, from needles and needleminders to project bags and books—each more stylish than the next.
Penny Linn also sells fun, creative accessories for you to display your finished works. Two favorites are the magnetic acrylic coasters (which she holds a patent on) and Nantucket basket-style purses—both of which allow you to swap out your needlepoint pieces.
LEARN TO STITCH
LeRay learned to needlepoint at a local shop in Lexington, Kentucky, while attending college there. This spring she will be offering a wide variety of classes at the new Rowayton location—from beginner stitching to canvas painting to finishing. But, she adds, with the online resources available these days, it’s a hobby that is easy to pick up. “People now watch it on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and that’s how they can start,” says LeRay. “It takes five minutes to teach somebody because you’re literally just doing the exact same thing over.”
That repetitive motion is appealing and relaxing to people who love to needlepoint. “It’s just over and over and meanwhile I can talk to my mom, I can listen to podcasts, I can watch a show,” says LeRay. “It’s just a perfect thing to do instead of scrolling on my phone. which again is just mindless—this is a better mindless.”
IN GOOD COMPANY
The shared love of needlepointing makes quick friends of people who might not otherwise have a connection. That’s something LeRay loves about this journey. She remembers a stitching retreat she organized in Nantucket. “We just said, anybody who wants to come, come sit with us and stitch,” she says. “We stitched on different beaches, we’d go to Millie’s and stitch.” Women of all ages attended and they bonded. LeRay met a woman named Robin from Westport and immediately offered her a job, something she has done more than once when encountering local people who are passionate about needlepointing. “A lot of these women held high-ranking coporate jobs and are now retired and found joy in needlepoint as their second act,” LeRay explains. “You’re getting the advantage of all their life experience and their knowledge of the needlepointing.” She jokingly adds that she entices them to come work at the shop with deep discounts. LeRay even convinced her college best friend, Amanda, a fellow enthusiast, to move to Connecticut and work for the growing company. She is now vice president of Penny Linn.
LeRay describes the company as “by a stitcher, for a stitcher.” She stocks the store with products and people that she likes, a vibe she says has not steered her wrong yet. “I’m curating it based off what I like, but I think it’s a relatable, younger, accessible curation for people like me,” she says. The adorable new shop at 161 Rowayton Avenue is bound to be a destination for needlepointers of all ages, and a place where future generations will learn to fall in love with this age-old hobby.