Beautiful Free Patterns, Valentine's Gifts, Slow Stitching Projects

 I'll speak of weather and get it out of the way as it were. We got advance warning of a winter storm so I was able to fill the feeders, get in my bit of firewood to start the fire and have an extra long walk in the evening thinking I wouldn't get out the next morning.

 When I got up at 7, everything was calm, snow gently falling. Quite a bit of accumulation, around 30 cm by then, so the snowplows had their work cut out for them...So Ned and I tried out the trails. It wasn't a walk, more of a slog. At the point where I was furthest from the house, I had to take a spell before trudging on. Ned was disappointed as the snow had covered up all the scents and not one track was seen to be followed. 

School buses were off the roads but schools were open and teachers expected to be there. Everything here goes on as normal, even city buses on the roads which seems so dangerous to me. And it is...there are numerous accidents being reported. 

Inside I had cooked us a roast beef dinner with lots of veggies including turnip and cabbage the night before so we could have leftovers if the power was lost. And a bit of a treat for Valentines' Day.

Tony surprised me with a Valentine's gift- two pretty posies, Dianthus and Campanula, both of which can be put in the garden later on if they survive. I really liked the card.

And I contented myself with lots of slow stitching like more embroidery on this very large Snow Days motif...how appropriate!

And quilting lines on the Red, White and Blue table runner too.

I also cut out two mug rugs for little gifts as my small scrappy stitching this month. 

I'm not spending time on the internet like I used to by having days I don't open the browser at all. But like every rule, there is an exception and mine is listening to an audio book or music, both of which I do a lot and are found on my computer.  During my now more precious browsing time recently, I noted these results for beautiful and free quilt patterns....

Art Gallery Quilts has their free patterns for gorgeous more modern style quilts HERE.

I had a lot of fun looking through Riley Blakes' free patterns...so many I loved. HERE.

I like how at American Patchwork and Quilting, they include smaller projects too in their free pattern inventory. So many patterns! HERE

We are under another snow storm watch for overnight so I'm also ending this post talking about snow. On the plus side, this snow will be good for maintaining ground water levels in the spring so the forests won't get too dry. I always worry about a fire here in our 10+ acre woods. 

Hope you are staying warm and toasty or cool and calm wherever you are in this wild world of ours!