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Norwell needlepoint shop gets boost from Ann Michael Maye’s post
The hand-painted “I love Drake Maye” canvas drew new customers and social media attention to Greenhouse Needlepoint.
A Norwell needlepoint shop is seeing a surge in business after Ann Michael Maye, the wife of New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, shared a gift from the store on social media.
Greenhouse Needlepoint, a hand-painted needlepoint shop that opened in January 2025, had been growing steadily since its launch, owner Shana McCarthy said.
But that growth accelerated dramatically after Ann Michael Maye posted one of the shop’s products to her Instagram story Jan. 30. In the post, Ann Michael shared a flat-lay photo of a needlepoint canvas featuring a miniature shirt that reads “I love Drake Maye” and tagged Greenhouse Needlepoint’s Instagram.
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McCarthy said the impact was immediate.
“A lot of people came into the shop that Saturday after it happened and said, ‘We haven’t heard about the shop until we saw Ann Michael’s post,’” McCarthy said. “Our followers went up, and certainly it has brought a lot of traffic in.”
The shop’s Instagram following increased by roughly 18% in just a week after Ann Michael’s first post.
The social media moment stemmed from a gift the store sent to Ann Michael after noticing on TikTok that she enjoys needlepointing, McCarthy said. Ann Michael continued posting about the canvas, showcasing her progress in a TikTok post with the hashtag “WIPWednesday” — short for “Work in Progress Wednesday.”
“We weren’t trying to do anything here other than share a little gift with her,” McCarthy said. “That’s what’s so fun about this for us. We have somebody who’s really fun, who likes to needlepoint. That’s what we’re excited about.”
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Once the posts began circulating, the shop saw a spike in interest that McCarthy described as “wild.”
“All hell broke loose in a good way,” she said.
All of Greenhouse Needlepoint’s canvases are hand-painted, including the Drake Maye design, McCarthy said. To manage demand, the shop opened preorders and was able to ship the first 50 canvases within a week.
“Those first 50 people that order them, they have their canvas, they have their threads, and they’ll be able to stitch it for the Super Bowl, which is kind of amazing,” McCarthy added.
McCarthy said the moment underscores how powerful social media can be for small businesses. She said people are paying attention in large part because they connect with Ann Michael.
“It’s amazing that she has that kind of reach,” McCarthy said.
“They want to know what she’s doing, and they’re like, ‘Well, I want to do that too,’” she added.
Beyond sales, McCarthy said she hopes the exposure continues to help spread the shop’s broader mission of building a creative community.
“We just want people to come in and stitch. We tell everybody all the time when they come in … that you don’t have to buy anything,” McCarthy said. “Just come in and stitch and be part of the artistic community of people. And so for her to get that word out there is pretty awesome.”
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