Apple Love

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

                                                                    Proverbs


The word nerd in me just loves a good simile and I've always loved this sentence so please humour me this morning.  I've been waiting to talk about apples, just about my favourite fruit.

The original family on this land planted apple trees.  Hubby had been told there was an apple grove here. I've tramped quite a lot of the 50 acres now that are not used for crops and I've found just four.  These, though gnarled and ancient, still produce fruit.  Last year, just when the flowers had opened, there was a terrible high wind with heavy rain and every single flower was destroyed.  We didn't get a single apple much to my disappointment, as I think of these apples growing here as probably the only truly organic thing I ever eat.
 It made me think of those settlers though; I guess an occurrence like that would have been disastrous.  How vulnerable growing things are and the people who depend on them!

This is a Macintosh apple tree near the creek and the closest to the house.  Lots of beautiful blossoms; what a shame if there are no apples to come of it.  

I just love apples as a motif especially for quilts.  Here are a few I've added at times to my "likes" file.



This was found by Adalgisa Coelho who has pinned 137 pins on her Pinterest board Patchwork Apples and so many are cute.



This is Pat Sloan's Red Apple Lane, Block 1.  Isn't it pretty?  The quilting is beautiful.  Since I've been practicing free motion quilting, I've gained a real appreciation for those feather motifs. You can find out more about this stitching project at Pat Sloan's Blog.  Of course, Pat is quite the expert having now designed several lines of fabric and had her quilting patterns appear in countless magazines.

Above is my S block for the Crabapple Hill Studio's Gardener's Alphabet project featuring blossoms and apples; it was so enjoyable to work.



This pretty design was featured on the cover of the July/August 2009 edition of  McCall's magazine.  It is called Apple Pie Quilt and is a design by Cheryl Algren Taylor, who, by the way, has published many quilt patterns. This is available along with many other lovely patterns and her books at Cheryl's store called
A Time To Sew Quilt Designs.

How about embroidering in an apple?  The link to this lovely Autumn Apple pattern  is HERE.  I can think of many different uses for such an embroidered piece.




And can't forget apples are for eating too, and I do believe 'good for you'. My love of apples continues.