Here's the skinny.
What's in a name?
The simple story is this. Back in 2006 my (then) teenage daughter taught me how to knit and it didn't take long for yet another creative seed to be planted. I love fiber and fabric of all kinds, but my mission at the time was a simple one...felted handbags. You could say that I was one of those regular nuts at the local yarn shop. Before long, I was dreaming up one handbag idea after another and couldn't seem to make them fast enough to keep up with consignment demand. The shop owners were literally "begging" me for more bags! In a desperate late night frenzy to make tags the name, HandBEHG, came together as a play on words. As luck would have it, It just kinda stuck.
HandBEHG Felts are born.
Very early on in the handbag biz, hand-felted wool balls were incorporated into the designs for zipper pulls and as creative embellishments on the exteriors. The first packages of felted wool balls were hand-packed from my personal stash and became very popular with jewelry makers, quilters, other fiber artists and the consignment buyer. With the increased popularity, felt ball production quickly transitioned from the studio to a fair-trade production group managing our perfected process.
Felt balls were first offered online in early 2007. In 2008, the HandBEHG Felts micro-brand was adopted on all product packaging. In short order, salvaged wool flat goods, kits, patterns, an online gift boutique and loads of creative inspiration were added to compliment the handcrafted felt balls.
Enter BEHG Designs.
On the trade-market beat, I met and became friends with the team from Premier Prints, one of the last standing family-owned textile printers left in the country--I totally dig a story of grit and perseverance! Anyway, the long and short of it is they asked me at a show way back when to make a quilt out of their fabrics. If you haven't already guessed, thinking outside the box is how I roll! Many quilts and sewing projects later, the design ideas just keep coming to me in my sleep. Well, THAT is how BEHG Designs happened. As mentioned previously, I'm a nut. What's one more side hustle in the big scheme of things, right? I'm having a ball.
This is ME - Tami Pfeil.
A midwesterner at heart from St. Louis, Missouri, I'm a self-proclaimed dabbler in many creative things and and expert at nothing much. In addition to a professional career in design/print and web-based technology, I have three grown children and a French Bulldog sidekick that goes by the name of Elivs. As a recent transplant to Columbus, Ohio (just before the pandemic shutdown), me and said sidekick co-habitate with a handsome grumpy old guy and our money-pit mid-century fixer-upper!
Dreamer. Designer. Wool fiber artist. Quilter. Occasional garment sewer. Unapologetic fabric junkie. I thrive on the visually unexpected and love to ignite a spark in the creative imagination of others.
Member of the Modern Quilt Guild with work published in numerous magazines including Quilting Arts Gifts, Simply Moderne, International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene, American Quilter and American Quilt Retailer. I've also had the privilege of a few appearances on the The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson & Ricky Tims.