Apple Tree fire screen - an apple

With the highlight spots on the apples, time to fill in the rest.  The main body of the apples is in Madeira stranded cotton no. 0211, a nice bright red.  I'm filling them in in long and short stitch, stitching over the stem stitch around the edge.

I'm also trying to give some shape to the apple by having the stitches follow the curve of the sides.

The idea behind painting the fabric before stitching over it is so that any gaps in the stitching won't be obvious but will be the same colour, more or less, as the threads, though I'm trying to keep the stitching solid anyway.

Here's the first apple (almost) complete:

The X-shaped unstitched bit at the bottom will be dealt with later - it's not going to be left like that.

Two more apples to go!