Some of you will be familiar with the Beaut Fruit Platter. This has been one of more popular pattern sets. As well as tweaking this one, (there was something a bit strange with the lemon) I have been working on a second set. The second set has been in the making for about the last 8 months. I cant believe it has taken me all year to get to this point!
This little lot of fruit goodness I have decided to call Cute Fruit. While it has been in production for a while now and I have just about finished the write up of the patterns. The family are a bit tired of the half finished bowl sitting around the house for so long! I started it before Christmas when these fruits were available so I could have real fruit models.
I am really pleased at how it is looking though and gives the fruit enthusiast some more crochet fruit to add to the bowl.
Cute Fruit included all the yummy things we get here in our summer which is at Christmas time.
Kiwi Fruit. I just love these little guys. I slice them up and put on the top of the pavlova. Yummo. My sister in law is a kiwi and her mum makes the most delicious Kiwi and Apple Amber pudding. So scrumptious with loads of ice cream.
Next came the avocado. There are a lot of avocado farms in Queensland and we have a plentiful supply of these babies. My brother in law has a farm in the Maleny area and has avocados growing down the back of his property. I enjoy them in a salad, avocado and chicken on a turkish bread or used in mexican dip. I didn't have any real good avocado coloured yarn, but the look is good. This one is pretty easy to work up as it is basically a pear, and then I halved it and added the seed. I wouldn't leave a real cut kiwi or avocado on the fruit bowl, but they are pretty boring until you cut them open. I cant remember either avocados or kiwi fruit when I was growing up, but they are very abundant here now. I have always thought that avocados are an acquired taste.
Then there is the grapes. These are a bit tedious to make but look great in amongst the other fruits. I chose to do seedless white sultana grapes, but purple or black would look pretty cool as well. There are lots of grapes grown here, hence our fabulous wine industry. South Australia is probably the grape centre of Australia.
By this stage the bowl was looking very green and brown, and I felt I needed some colour. Nothing better than stone fruit to liven the kitchen up!
So I created peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines. Most of our stone fruit here comes from the Granite Belt west around the Stanthorpe area. Some comes from Victoria. This time of year there isn't much about, but come the warmer months the shops have plenty to choose from. I am hoping that our recent drought doesn't limit supply too much. The shapes are all fairly similar, it is really a matter of size and colour choice. These were a lot of fun to make and I found lots of stone fruit colours in my stash.
Finally, the other little treat we get in summer are cherries. I remember as a kid going cherry picking in Victoria. Most of our cherries come from down south where the humidity is less and the soil and climate conducive to cherry growing. I did notice earlier this week that US cherries are in the store. The US fruit always seems a bigger to the ones grown here. I don't know if that is because they export the best, or whether they are a different variety.
So now I have a full bowl and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I like the different shapes and colours.
Once the patterns have had a final test I will be listing them as a group on etsy.
Thanks for looking!
(c)crochetroo 2007 please do not copy my photos. Direct links welcome.
