Wednesday, February 10, 2016

February Spotlight: Tamara Brown



I am Idaho born and raised!  I grew up in Preston, and am the oldest of four siblings, two boys, two girls, Shari being the youngest!  I pieced my first quilt while in college taking a domestic arts class.  It was a log cabin quilt.  I realized then that I loved piecing the fabric together, but I did not like hand quilting them.  Luckily this was a talent that my mother, grandmother and aunts had! I started working in Logan, Utah at ZCMI’s fabric counter, and worked there for 9 months. All the while gathering a lot of fabric.

Tamara looking at the camera, I'm looking at the cake!
My work path then took a large detour and I started working in my first love, photography.  I took a break from large hobbies while I built my career during this time.  I started working in a small portrait studio in Logan, then ventured into self-employment and ran a photography business out of my home for 7 years.  After partnering with a fellow photographer, we ran a high-end retail studio in Logan for another 3 years.  
At that time, the love of my life entered the picture.  Brian Brown, a commercial photographer from Idaho Falls, wowed and wooed me, so my life path took another 90-degree turn and I married him and moved back to Idaho.   I now live in Idaho Falls, working with my husband at our commercial based studio, with the occasional portrait now and then.  We also both teach our specialties at Brigham Young University-Idaho as adjunct professors.

Since Brian and I were unable to have children, we have had plenty of time to cultivate a number of different hobbies.  I had the chance to start piecing quilts again, especially since Shari jumped into the Quilting World.  I love to try something new and like to challenge myself. Creating my own quilt composites from things that I see and want to try has been my creative release lately.  
Meanwhile, Brian got heavily involved in wood turning (for his own creative release) and since my father owned a lumberyard as I grew up, I was a little more than intrigued.  So, with his help, I have also learned to turn wood.  We opened an Etsy store (RoundtheWoods) to help subsidize our wood turning purchases. 
We can’t decide which is more expensive, wood and tools, or fabric and sewing gadgets!  However, I won’t let us turn my quilting hobby into another business! Most weekends you can find us either in the garage/woodshop or you can find me in Egypt (my craft/sewing room). Between our businesses, family and teaching, our life is never dull!

This is me..Shari… promoting her work! If you want one of these please visit their shop:


They are pretty amazing and I have one myself! Plus, it makes your sewing/quilting  fun!!!

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Sunday, February 7, 2016

February Block for Tam!


I finished my sister's block tonight! It came together pretty fast. She does love her purple and green's and I'm happy that we can all help her make this quilt for her. It was fun mixing the Ohio Star and log cabin. This would be a fun way to showcase many designs. 

Her questions is when did you finish your first pieced quilt? To be honest the first one I did was simple squares when trying to learn. But my actually pieced quilt was what I designed for my fabric line Sublime. I did an appliqué/pieced combination called Big Blooms. It was fun to do!

XOXO,

Shari


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April's String Block for January

I was so happy to get to do this block again! The string block is such an amazing way to bust through your stash and to work with April's fabric line it was fun to see all the bright colors come together. Makes me think of summer! I'm so ready for summer this year, are you? So, as I was putting this together I had fun playing with it and I wanted to center that floral to make a bigger splash! April I hope you like how it came together. I chose to keep the paper attached for you and chose a 1.5" stitch so I hope it tears easy for you.


April's question is: What quilt is on your bucket list!?!

Oh gosh..there are so many. Farmer Wive's Quilt has been on my bucket list for forever! So I'm trying to complete that. I'm going to have to add a string quilt so I can bust through some of my stash. I do want to attempt Sandy Klop's Merry Go Round for sure. I even want to attempt the Hazel Hedgehog, but I need to find the perfect fabric for that project. I'm in the middle of a Green Tea Bean by Jenny Kingwell and I may want to try Smitten by Lucy Kingwell. Let's just say there are a ton of patterns out there that are amazing.. these are just a few on my bucket list.

XOXO,

Shari

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