Lexi Mire is a wedding photographer who has unexpectedly created a booming career embroidering hats with colorful floral designs. Lexi’s first forays into stitching were just meant for herself until a friend asked her to embroider a blank hat. After sharing the final product on social media, it was clear that Lexi had stumbled into an untapped market. Now, she creates that sell out in minutes on Etsy. (If you want your own, look to her for sale announcements or join her !)
I spoke with Lexi about the type of stitches she uses and how, amidst all of the enthusiasm around her hats, she achieves the elusive work/life balance. Scroll down for the interview. The accompanying photos are a peek into her studio and the process it takes to create a single hat.
Where did you get the idea to embroider hats?
Embroidering on hats was definitely not my original plan when I started embroidery! I started playing around with floral embroidery one fall when I got a new denim jacket and wanted to make my own patches. A good friend of mine named Katie was in love with the embroidery in my Instagram posts and texted me asking if I would embroider on a blank hat for her. She wears a ton of hats and wanted something fun and feminine, as opposed to the typical sports team logo or text design. I embellished the hat for her and when I posted a boomerang of it on my my followers were STOKED. I ended up creating more hats for some local art markets and then started building my business from there.
What types of stitches do you use when working on your hats?
My embroidery style is pretty modern, and I don’t follow a lot of the traditional embroidery rules. So I make up stitches a lot or do variations on traditional stitches. The ones I play around with most are the back stitch, the split stitch, and the long and short stitch.
Your hats are in high demand! How do you deal with such enthusiastic interest while still getting to have a life outside of stitching?
It is absolutely mind blowing how high the demand is. It’s definitely been a learning process for me figuring out how many hats I can say yes to and where to draw the line. I obviously want to accommodate everyone because I am so flattered and honored that so many people want to own something I created, but I also want to be a well rounded human being with a social life, healthy relationship, and hobbies. I limit myself to a certain number of orders per month now which has been super helpful for me. The hats sell out almost instantly, so it can be a crazy process for a customer. With that in mind, I have also tried to add more dates to my schedule where hats will be available if people miss out on past sales, and I have also released tees and tote bags as an alternative if someone wants to support my business but haven’t been able to snag a hat yet. I am also planning on releasing patterns so crafty folks out there can create a hat of their very own!
What’s surprised you the most about embroidering hats?
The biggest thing that surprised me during this whole adventure was discovering my own talent and abilities. It sounds silly, but I have been a photographer my whole adult life, and always felt like it was my one big talent. It has been so magical discovering that I had this whole well of untapped inspiration in me that I didn’t even know about! It has also been so fun delving into the world of fiber arts on Instagram. There are so many incredibly skilled artists out there in the world and my feed is just a colorful wonderland now, rather than just pictures of people’s lunch and cats. Finding those creators and realizing this skill set I have could be my job is something I am so grateful for.
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