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by Corinne Ramey
For Inwood resident Carla Hansen, vintage linens, traditional embroidery stitches and snarky or unexpected sayings are a perfect combination.
“I find the contrast of rock lyrics and this old-school style to be really amusing,” Hansen said. “And it turned out that other people think so, too.”
Hansen, who is an advertising writer by day, moonlights as an embroidery artist. She has built a small business around embroidering the unexpected on the squarely traditional. And to her surprise, she has found that there is a market for sayings like “A suicide bomber walked into a bar” or “You are one sexy beast” surrounding by flowers or classical embroidery accents.
In 2008, while walking around the craft store Michaels, Hansen decided, on a whim, to give embroidery a try. She purchased some thread and gingham, and embroidered the first line from the Rolling Stones song “Honky Tonk Woman.”
“I met a gin soaked bar room queen in Memphis,” the embroidery reads.
One thing led to another, and, in March 2009, Hansen opened a shop on Etsy, a sales Web site for handmade items. Although many of her sales are on Etsy, she also sells pieces to off-line customers.
“I put them up where I’m working and people respond to them,” Hanson said. “I literally sell them right off the wall.”
She has also shown work at various craft shows, including Crest Hardware Art Show in Williamsburg, and at the Katonah Museum in Westchester and a gallery in Newark, New Jersey.
Prices range from $25 for a small piece, and up to $200 for a larger one. Some of her more popular items include, “Thank you for wearing lipstick” and “You can’t always get what you want.”
Her personal favorites are “Mother Nature smokes crack,” and “I told you homeboy you can’t touch this.”
She embroiders all of her work on vintage linens, which she purchases from eBay, thrift stores or flea markets.
She picked her shop name, My Needle Habit, at the last minute while attending one of her first craft shows. “I’m using it in a very literal sense for an embroidery needle,” she said. “But I admit I like the twistedness of it.”
Selling her work on Etsy has also changed her own purchasing habits, Hansen said. “If I can buy something from someone who cares as much about making it as I do, I will,” she said.
Hansen was born and grew up in Long Island, and eventually moved to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts, where she studied illustration and advertising. She moved to Inwood in 1997 after reading a Time Out New York feature on five affordable places to live in New York. Inwood was the only one in Manhattan, so Hansen and her husband decided to give it a shot, and walked through an apartment with views of Inwood Hill Park.
“We looked out the window and we looked at each other and my husband and I were like, “wow.” They live in the same apartment today.
In the future, Hansen hopes that her embroidery business becomes a bigger part of her life.
“If this became a segue career I’d love to do a book cover or advertising,” Hanson said. “It’s turning into more and more fun and I just want to see where it goes.”
For more information on My Needle Habit, go to myneedlehabit.etsy.com or email
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