Three Free Patterns, More EPP Pluses, Embroidered Snowy Scene, Muffins, A Show to Watch

 My Jasmine Magnolia is bravely blooming a little. Photographed against a screen and that backyard bank of snow.

I'm a bit proud to have kept this one alive and kicking. And thanks Mary Anne, Magpie's Mumblings, for that tip about banana skin water being excellent for houseplants too. We eat a lot of bananas so I will definitely be adding it to the mixtures rather than straight to composting.

LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color's prompt this week was about favourite spring flowers. Think it will be a while before I'm seeing any flowers here. This is our front steps where that dip is, well it was ...much shovelling in my future which, don't worry, I will take breaks.

That is all snow off the veranda roof. But I know when the snow starts to melt it will go quickly. Of course, I love to see the early flowers but they tend to pop up before the weather is quite ready for them. Spring is when we get freezing rain and that usually kills any flowers. But nothing is going to be popping out of the ground just yet and that is why I love it when you share your spring blooms. 

Daughter shared her walnut and bran muffins with us. She had cut the sugar in half and realized afterwards that that was a tad extreme. But with butter and raspberry jam, they are delicious. 

It's coming to the time for Easter and bunnies. This fabric, Dandelion Easter, showed up in an email from The Quilted Boutique, one of my favourite shops to explore.  So pretty. 

 Slow stitching this week is taken up with my Crabapple Hill Studios' Snow Days blocks. Here is the first block finished.

And stitching in front of this series which we have finished now...I even got used to Harrison and Helen together which seemed odd to me at the start. Thanks all for the recommendation of this one.

I stitched a couple more of the Pluses in greens...

Thursday's Three Free

I'm seeing this kind of scrappy triangle pop up here and there around the web and many are calling it the modern triangle. Here is Rebecca from Bryan House Quilts showing how to make the modern triangle and form it into a heart shape too in this case. Lots of good info and ideas here and on her blog too.

From the folks at Sulky, in their free pattern bank is this very cute pattern called Irish Twins.

Also there you'll find the link to make this 50 States Wallhanging. Along the way is the template for each state to personalize your hanging. 

I'm always spying ways to use up scrappy strings and this is a neat quilt below called Diamonds and Strings. Made by  Beth on her YouTube channel My Sewing Room. Beth shares something I've always wanted to know how to do... how to draw an accurate diamond shape, in this case out of cereal box cardboard. The video is called Make a String Quilt using A Diamond Shaped Template (homemade of course).  Beth's scrappy stringy diamonds are really pretty.

That night I was browsing 

At Sum of Their Stories and I found this wonderful post that takes you through how to crochet a granny square.  Then they show you all the wonderful items you can make with them. 

And as always for my cross stitching friends, Smart Cross Stitch has a bank of very neat patterns to download for free. Like Christmas Deer below. I especially love the embellishing stitches on this one.

I'm enjoying my week with the dogs. They are so happy for any little time and attention given them and return to us such love and affection back. 

Sharing this post with Floral Friday Foto, Kathy's Quilts, Quilting is More Fun Than Housework, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.