Welcome to Wednesday

Now that winter's finally here after a very stop-start autumn, we have all the excuses we need to hibernate against the chill and spend quality time indoors with our favourite quilting projects. We all know how the demand for gorgeous hand-made quilts rises during the winter months, so we're actually all carrying out an important community service.

In our Show and Tell column, Blueberries tutor Susan Carr reveals how inspiration from a student led to the beautiful creation in the spotlight. Oh, and this week's Big Thing is yet another item capable of rousing controversy and passion. Read on to find out why. 

Sewn Toy Tales

Step into the vibrant world of Melly & Me to discover sewn softies that re utterly irresistible.

Colourful fabrics, personality-packed characters and lots of fun details make up 12 distinctive designs. Girls of all ages will adore Lou-Lou the panda and shy mouse Mabelle. Little and not-so-little boys will want to make friends with Harry the monster and cuddly alien Alvin. With expert advice about choosing fabrics and sewing techniques, all you have to do is decide who you'd like to meet first!

$35 for a 128 page book, what value! Click here to buy.

25% off Wide Backs for 5 days

Dont miss this great special!

For the next five days we are offering 25% off widebacks.

There are 45 to choose from, offer runs from Wednesday 1 June to Sunday 5 June 2011. 

Click here to buy now.

Pattern Princess

What’s hot in the House of Blueberries

Monica Poole's Beautiful Bows

Well my loyal subjects, this week I’m going to talk about the latest to come out of Moon Shine Designs, by our very own Monica Poole.

‘Beautiful Bows’ is Monica’s latest pattern, a very fetching design that’s part 3D with ruffled bows and a ruffled border.

Jackie’s already made it up in her own choice of colours, which is the one shown in the picture. ‘Beautiful Bows’ is available for single sized quilts in these same colours.

The pattern retails at $20 and the kit for $200.

Click here to purchase the pattern or click here to purchase the kit.

Click here on on the picture to see a larger picture of this beautiful quilt.

Show and Tell

Show us the item and tell us the story

Susan Carr takes five

What was your inspiration for this quilt?
It was actually one of the ladies in my class, Anna, who had made a scrap quilt with her leftovers and it looked great. The pattern is from a book called Take Five, which Blueberries sells.

Did you customise as you went?
No, not really. All my leftovers were from the one range so I was lucky because they pretty much all went with each other. All I had to do was find one consistent colour for the squares and that’s the red.

How long did it take you to complete?
There was a lot of chain piecing so it was a very quick quilt. I did it in one weekend.

How long have you been a sewer?
For about thirty years now. I started out as a very small child sewing weird creations for the family like cushions and dolls’ clothes.

What’s the next project?
My aim now is to go through Take Five for some new projects to work through more of my scraps. The book appeals to me because there’s so many things in there that I can do. There’s a really terrific quilt in there using a design with maple leaves. A lot of the quilts in this particular book are unisex, too, which is another huge bonus. All regular quilters know that it can be hard finding good boys’ designs.

Click here for more information on Take Five or to order a copy.

Big 'n' Bizarre

A road trip of Australia’s fiberglass monuments

The Big Wine Cask

Q. When is a Big Thing not a Big Thing?
A. When it’s a water purification plant.

Here’s another Big Thing that causes controversy among purists, mainly because of its abovementioned double life. The Big Wine Cask’s true identity as a water purification plant at the Stanley winery is something that causes heated and bitter debates amongst Big Things believers across the country. That, plus the scandalous fact that it isn’t even made of fiberglass.

The Stanley Winery is located in the south western NSW town of Buronga, which is actually just a quick chuck across the Murray River from Mildura in Victoria. Back in 1969 when it first opened, someone thought it’d be a great idea to put the winery’s ugliest feature right smack dab at the public entrance so it’d always be the first thing every visitor saw. And so for almost 15 years the drab, 11m x 7m x 8m building rudely greeted guests like a big smelly concrete bouncer.

Then one day someone on the marketing team had the bizarre but brilliant idea of turning the building into a huge cask of wine. As it was already vaguely cask-shaped, all this transformation required was a coat of paint and a nozzle. A group of local artists did the paint job while the nozzle was constructed by Scholley Industries, a company that made the bladders inside casks. Normal-sized casks, that is.

The Big Wine Cask was officially unveiled in 1983, instantly providing an eye-catching and iconic greeting for all Stanley’s visitors, while quietly continuing in its other job as a water purification plant. It’s estimated that if this oversized Chateau de Box was real, it’d hold about 400,000 litres of wine, which, coincidentally is the same amount the average Australian consumes in a normal year. Imagine all the trips to the bottle shop you could save if you had one of these in your back yard.

And the last word...

"Quilting is cheap therapy."