Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Here's a Curly One.

When thinning the kiwifruit we find some strange shapes. Fans; doubles triples; quadruples even, certainly some vulgar shapes , many with male looking parts, but this just might be the cutest most ornate one I have found get. The line down the side of the fruit is called a Hayward mark ( these are Hayward variety kiwifruit and it is a mark peculiar to them ) An export standard fruit( which is what we aim to grow )  is allowed 2 thin, not deep lines with no protuberance or beak or curl. This one had 23 distinct lines and many curls. I love it and it is on show on our bench till it goes off. ( it has been out to show and tell with me, he he, the ladies loved it. )
        We have had a little much needed rain. There is drizzle again this morning. A little more ( 2inches ) would be good. ( good for the garden and the orchard and good for me cause I don't need to water, or fruit thin  and can have some inside time!!!)
Yesterday morning I got to sew for a while. This is the sum of the parts for my selvage quilt so far.

Now progressed to this stage. 20 blocks all joined. I did 4 strips of 5. That was straight forward. Getting the 4 strips joined and the seam matching exactly was not. I pinned and even adjusted a couple of the seams for a better fit. In the end I pinned the intersections then sewed just across each. After inspecting that they were matching to my satisfaction I then sewed the entire seam.That way where there was any extra to ease in it happened block by block. I might have thought that was challenging but getting the whole thing totally square was even worse. I pressed and trimmed till I thought the quilt will be small if I keep this up. I am now happy that each seam through the quilt is within a fraction of the same length and the same with the long seams. ( otherwise when I measured through the middle to cut my borders they wouldn't have fitted )My 12.5"  square ruler has a diagonal line which helps keep each block lying totally horizontal. Maybe I was being too fussy, but if things are slightly out it only gets worse at the next stage, which is to add all round some thin white strips before adding the piano key borders. Thank you Nicky, Jennifer, Meg and Molly for your confirmation of side seams first. Molly you will have to stop seeing fairytales everywhere. I really would have let you know if we had a diamond mine. Little people I could deal with. maybe it is them stealing time. ( someone else wrote a blog about the fact they were sure someone was stealing their time...I know the feeling. ) 

4 comments:

molly said...

I've never seen a kiwi quite like that one!
There should be no problem of stretching with this quilt as it's made from selvage strips! And yes, when I add borders I add the side ones first and if possible I like to have those ones cut with the length of grain----less stretchy than crosswise.........

Jennifer said...

That's a very strange kiwifruit! Your quilt is coming along very nicely - the white border will probably help keep it straight.

Thimbleanna said...

Your kiwi info is always so interesting. And that quilt is going to be very cool - what a lot of work!

Unknown said...

Love what you're doing with those selvedges Ali - gorgeous!!!