Patty Murphy

Shine on little shoes, shine on

My best friend has four year old twins. One of twins is a purse girl. She loves shoes, clothes, purses, you name it. Recently she found some bejeweled Converse shoes that were outrageously priced. Best friend called me to see if I could reproduce the shoes.

Of course I’ll do anything for her and her children, so few Swarowski crystals, ribbon and glue did the trick. I took the shoes to best friend on Sunday. The twins’ birthday party was a blast and little miss chose her outfit based on what would go with the shoes. Is that cute or what?!

The shoes are on top of some receiving blankets I made for my cousin. She’s having a baby girl in January. Cousin asked me what some of my favorite things were when I had a newborn. I had to say that one of my favorite gifts were some receiving blankets a quilter friend made for me. The blankets were larger than those you get at the baby superstore so swaddling was easier because I could wrap the daylights out of little mister. I called it making him a taco.

Cousin is decorating the nursery in bright pink, orange and green so I thought the flannel I chose would work nicely for her. Now if I can just get the darn blankets in the mail!

Busy, busy Bee

I’ve been working fast and furiously on gifts lately. Little mister has four birthday parties in the next few weeks, and Christmas is around the corner. Teacher gifts, play group gifts, family…the list gets long.

My best friend has twin girls. They turn four next month, so I made them each a little purse. Perfect gift for little girls!

Alex loves frogs, so her bag has a cute frog print as the lining.

Taylor is not as cutesy. Her favorite color is baby blue so her bag has a blue flower print. It’s more sophisticated and I think she’ll like it. At least I hope so!

Little mister’s play group now has seven kids in it. Motley crew to say the least. All the mothers are wonderful, and so are the kids. Little mister is one of three boys. I’m making all the kids in play group and the kids on our street pillowcases for Christmas. I’ve been really good and mostly used fabric from my stash. Here’s what I have so far.

Two for the Road

Yeah, yeah. Not talking about alcohol, but the two quilts I made for Mrs. T. Over the years she kept all her sons’ soccer and basketball jerseys. I’ve assembled them into quilts for them for Christmas. I finished sewing borders on the quilts today.

You can barely see it, but in the corners of the quilt are pieces of a baby blanket. The green outer border will have all basketball and soccer patches on it once the top is quilted.

Quilt number 2.

I loved making each of these. Such fun!

I fall for fall

Fall. The perfect season. Cool, crisp mornings. Breezy afternoons. You can smell it in the air. Leaves are starting to change. And I cannot wait to wear my new fall goodies!

I love fall afternoons. The weather is perfect to take little mister outside to play or bind a quilt.

Just in time to ring in the new season, I finished this quilt. The colors scream October wedding.

Fall

Okay, so it’s not autumn but I am working on a fall themed quilt so I yearn for the crisp mornings and changing leaves.

K was married in the fall, and it’s her favorite season, so we have a themed autograph quilt. What a great idea in lieu of a signing book!

We might tweek it a bit, but this is the rough draft. I emailed a photo to her today and hopefully she’ll like it. I’m fond of the quilt and like her color choices. The ladies at Little Quilts and Tiny Stitches helped her pick a lovely selection.

T-shirt Quilts

We woke up to snow this morning. A light dusting. Boy, was I surprised! I thought my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the very early morning light. It’s a bright, sunny day here in Atlanta. A nice breeze is blowing and it’s very cold here today. We ran a few errands because we had to, but pretty much plan to hunker down for the

remainder of the day, which is good because I have to sew sleeves to the back of a quilt in order for it to go in the Bulloch Hall Show.

I did get B’s quilts finished and off to her.

And number two:

She loves the quilts! I am very happy about that.

My Hawaiian Star class is going to take. I’m pretty excited about that. I took a workshop with Judy Neimeyer a few weeks ago and learned a lot of tricks. I know it will help me teach her patterns in class. I am currently working on her pattern Sea Urchins.

Doing the things

Even during the holiday insanity I somehow managed to find time to quilt. I am teaching a new class at the shop this quarter. Quilting 102.

Basically the class will teach beginning quilters how to sew triangles and get perfect points, flying geese and a few new quilting techniques.

I hope the class is a success. The sample is rather small, but full of half and quarter square triangles, and flying geese. There’s no better way to perfect triangles than to practice!

My Pi Phi T Shirt quilt is also finished. I prepped the shirts over a year ago and finally just went for it! It’s not a great photo, but for the time being it’ll do.

I am trying to be a closer this year – you know, finish the projects I have started before starting new ones.

It might not work all the time, but it will be my driving force.

And, B’s quilts are finished too! I think they look pretty fabulous! The photos don’t quite do them justice, but hey, I was on my way out the door and my only helper can’t even stand up yet!

This is her Maryville quilt.

Here’s a close up of it!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas will be here soon. I finished this commissioned piece. I’m really proud of it and think it turned out really well!

I have the body of B’s two quilts assembled. Here’s a close up of one. I am hoping to get borders on this week. Yeah! Oh, what a relief that will be for me!

T-shirt quilts are so much fun to make, and I was on a tear after putting B’s quilts together that I started on my Pi Phi t-shirt quilt. Finally. I have had the shirts prepped for a year but hadn’t made time to assemble the squares. Go figure. I have most of the squares finished. I had originally planned to have each square finish at 15 inches, but the larger shirts that don’t have any borders look funny, so now they are all going to finish a bit larger. I think. I have to look at everything again. I put one row together the other night and decided that I didn’t like it, so I’m in brainstorming mode again. I’d love to go with what I have and plan to tweek the larger squares, if possible, thus making the top go together a bit faster. I know what I want for the inner and outer borders. Hopefully the planned fabric will work once the body is assembled.

Autumn is coming to an end. I just loved the golden leaves. They are so beautiful. Really they are. When I was a little girl, my sister and I used to collect brightly colored fallen leaves and iron them between two sheets of waxed paper. Well, Mom would iron. But then my sister and I would cut out the leaves to send to my grandmother in Florida so she could decorate her Thanksgiving table with real leaves. L and I thought we were the deal doing that. To this day I think about sending leaves to my grandmother. I’m sure she’d get a kick out of it.

This isn’t my house, but a house in my neighborhood. Look at the leaves?! Aren’t they amazing?!

I like this cup

Last week was tough. S kept waking up at night and we couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. He’s still up a bit more than I’d like, but I think we are nearing the end of that misery. Boo Boo came over on Saturday to give us some much needed relief.

Husband and I took advantage of our few hours of free time and headed toward Atlantic Station. When we got into the car husband asked me if I needed the cup that was in the cup holder. I said yes. I liked that cup. That cup holds water. I then realized what I said and had to jump out of the car to spit out the water in my mouth I was laughing so hard! Like it was some philosophical awakening that cups hold water. duh. That little pun gave both of us some much needed relief.

On Sunday, S attended a birthday party for AG. The first birthday party he was invited to attend. He held up surprisingly well through the event, given that it occurred during his nap time. Of course, as soon as we got into the car he fell asleep.

L’s quilt top is finished. I feel SOOO much better having that project under my belt. The quilt looks really good. I had planned one pattern and didn’t like it, so I took all my cut up pieces and created something else. Something better. I’m very pleased with it.

Before Christmas I have two t-shirt quilt tops to finish and I need to get a binding stitched onto another quilt. I have one of the t-shirt quilts about two-thirds pieced and the binding is sewn onto MA’s quilt. I was getting really stressed out, not thinking I could finish anything, but I’m making good progress. Hopefully that trend will continue.

October 29, 2007

I finished the quilt for S today. It looks so good, and I think she’ll be really pleased. The quilt is appropriately named “Million Babies”. Each square is a collage of photos that Dr. T has collected over the years. He delivered all the children in the photos. It’s pretty amazing to see how many children one man has helped bring into the world. I imagine it’s incredibly gratifying. What an amazing profession.

Here’s a close up