It's Polite to Point [Costco Connection magazine]
by Hope Katz Gibbs
Costco Connection magazine, November 1999
Member Profile, page 17
Step inside the manufacturing plant of Hollis Minor’s needlepoint company, It’s Polite to Point, and you have stepped into her home. In the early 1990s, Minor moved her company, which designs needlepoint kits adapted from museum art, from a storefront in Annapolis, Maryland, to a large farmhouse near Baltimore.
She and her husband, former State Delegate Don Lamb, also moved into the 5,000-square-foot house. Although Minor sometimes longs for a little privacy, she says it’s great to be able to roll out of bed and be at work.
It’s a dandy workspace to roll into. One side of the office is lined with sliding glass doors, enabling her and the employees to look out onto a large and luscious tree-fined yard. The 400-plus designs that she’s created in the 20 years she has been in business are meticulously organized in an air-conditioned basement. Yards of yarn and canvas are stored in the garage outside her back door. And in an upstairs bedroom, Minor paints her original designs, then transfers them to canvases with the help of an old-fashioned heat press.
Living with needlepoint is nothing new for Minor, 42, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania. She was six when her mother taught her how to needlepoint. Being good at some form of needlecraft is a family tradition that began with her great great Aunt Beatrice, a pioneer who settled in the then new state of North Dakota.
Beatrice’s handiwork was passed on through the generations. Minor appreciated the creative heirlooms, and quickly became skillful at working with needle and thread. By the time she was eight, she was drawing her own designs. And at 16, she enrolled at the University of Maryland’s architecture program, but got a degree in business.
One of her first experiences in the business world was as the comptroller for a small steel company in Baltimore. Then 21, she helped the firm grow to an $8 million business. A year later, she was bored. “I decided if I was going to put mind, body and soul into something, it was going to be my own thing,” she says.
While figuring out just what to do next, she began selling her own needlepoint designs and by the end of 1979 she had established It’s Polite to Point, which makes needlepoint kits for experts and novices alike.
Designs include some of the world’s finest paintings, including the Winterthur Museum’s Rose Topiary in a Teacup, the Smithsonian Institution’s Chine Floral, and the American Textile History Museum’s Tropical Paradise.
The kits include a printed canvas, enough yarn to complete the project and four pages of directions. They run $25 for an eyeglass case to $75 for a large pillow and are sold in the museums’ gift shops, as well as by mail order. The museums get royalties and a portion of everything sold in their gift shops-a total of about $3 million to date.
“Doing needlepoint of museum designs is a clever and convenient wav for people to create heirlooms and get a lesson in art history,” says Minor.
Next: Are You a Vanilla Purist? [McCormick / Costco Connection]
Back: Education: A Victory of Kids [Child Welfare League of America]