Welcome to the hippest place on the "interweb"

Hello world!

My name is jesi and I'm the proud owner, seamstress, buyer and brain behind HipViolet.com. What do we do at HipViolet? We pretty much make the niftiest bibs and accessories you've ever seen! Here are a few examples of what you might find at my shop on Etsy:

This is my current favorite bib. In fact, I liked it so much I made another one for my daughter to wear!
And here is a "Sweet Little Blue Whale" swimming around in a sea of funky 70's looking flowers:
I have always been into crafting and sewing. My parents can attest to this... when I was about 13 I decided I wanted to make my own soft flannely pants to sleep in. So what did I do? I laid down on the floor and traced myself! Then I cut out two pieces of the tracing and hand-stitched them together. It took forever. And they didn't really fit. But it sure was fun!

I come from a long line of seamstresses and crafters. Well, maybe a short line, but a line none the less. My Grandma taught home-ec for years and was a master seamstress. She used to sew my horse show outfits for me back in the day. She is a huge inspiration to me and I swear I can hear her telling me what to do as I sew ("Now you have to PRESS THAT Jesi!" So I do.) She gets a kick out of it when I tell her that as she swears she is not that good of a teacher, but she is!

She can also tell you that I've never been one to sew from a pattern (she was witness to the Great Flannel Pants Sewing Incident). She tried to teach me a few years ago and it just didn't make sense to me. So I make my own patterns and sew from those. No weird marks to follow - just my own!

Here is my favorite picture of my grandma with my daughter Violet taken last summer:
Anyway, I have gone through many crafting phases. They all revolve around trying to make a few bucks and I want to publicly thank my mom for putting up with all of my crazy ideas and funding a lot of them. I made beaded pins in high school to wear with the aforementioned horse show clothes. I went through a tie-dye phase in college. And I did pretty well "bedazzling" jackets and vests into horse show clothes a few years ago. That was probably my first money-maker! And the reason why I have so many scraps of ultrasuede and mutli-colored rhinestones that may or may not ever make their appearance on Etsy!

I have always liked adding iron-ons to boring t-shirts, tank tops and sweatshirts. And when my daughter was born I did the same for her!

But I know what you are thinking. Why bibs? Why NOW?

Well, as any of you moms know, once your little pipsqueak reaches a certain age, their food goes EVERYWHERE when they eat. And no amount of dinky bib from Babies R' Us was going to cover or protect my messy kid and her cute iron-on worthy clothes. So I did what any mom would do. I ordered some ;)

Actually a friend of mine made the prototype for what is now the Hip Violet bib. Around the time I was going to try my hand at making one myself, she decided not to make them anymore. So, thanks to my internet friend Sheila, I now have her idea and a big pile of her fabric to go with it.

So I started sewing. I made my sister a few oversized bibs for her 3 year old. I made a few for me. I loved them. My friends and family loved them. I started adding appliques to them. Now I loved them more.

This was one of the first bibs I made for my friend Beth and her daughter Lily:
And I'll just admit this up front. I love love LOVE shopping for fabric. I have a lot of fabric. You can see it all here on my Flickr account: Click Here

So, that is just a little background on me, why I'm here and what I'm up to. I can't believe anyone would actually read this far, but if you did - THANKS! I promise none of my future posts will be this long-winded. Really!

Keep checking back as I navigate the in's and out's of owning my own little storefront on the web. You can always see my entire inventory by clicking here. Bookmark it! I usually am adding products daily and you won't want to miss it!

Later skaters!
jesi