Valentines times 54 plus one heart

     Every year I make Valentines cards. I try to increase the recipients, but it gets harder every year. It is my gift to the people I know and love.  I love to make them, but hard to produce so many. Maybe because I feel each one has to be unique and stitched with a lot of variety. I used to silk screen them, but gave up silk screening to focus on quilting.
    I had an idea in my head, so I started sewing about 18 x 21 pieces of made fabric. I used white felt as the base and did the stitch and flip method of sewing strips on (raw edges set my teeth on edge). Then I used ribbons and stitched them over the fabric. 

I  made three of these slabs

    Evaluating the pieces, I made heart templates (2 shapes out of template plastic and traced the hearts on the made fabric with a think black sharpie. I cut them out carefully with my excellent Karen Kay Buckley scissors as I packed them together so I would have little waste. I had some plain home dec canvas type fabric that I cut into rectangles, sewed a thin metallic gold thread line around, and then frayed the edges to the thread. 
     I pinned the hearts in place and sewed the hearts to the canvas with a black thread and zig zag stitch. I experimented with other stitches and different sewing machines. I did try my Kenmore 1040 (the Ketherweight), my Bernina 830, and the 401. The 401 did the best job with these, so all the rest of them were zigzagged on it.  To make the cards, I used the Ketherweight, a 301, a 401- love giving those gals a workout.

     The rectangles with hearts were glued on blank cards bought in packs of 50 at Joann's (coupon of course) with Quick Grab Tacky glue applied in 9 dots. The insides were stamped with a Valentine greeting, signed, and into envelopes, stamped and in the mail. The intown cards mailed Monday, the out of town ones last Thursday.

     It was 2 years ago- Feb. 7, 2018, I had a heart attack shortly after dropping the out of town cards at the post office. The other ones got mailed when I was in the ICU. Luckily, they were all ready.
      So, you can see why I approach that day apprehensively. This Feb. 7th, while in cardiac rehab (3 X a week), there was a problem when they read my blood pressure as is the custom before and after exercise. They said my heart was skipping around. I called the cardiologist and they set an appointment later this week for a Holter monitor. I called my primary and she got me in for an EKG immediately which showed a whole slew of PVCs. I never had them before. Accordingly I am a bit freaked out but the cardiologist did not seem concerned. I don't know how you can go from normal one day to bunches of PVCs the next, but I did. I sort of feel like a ticking time bomb at the moment. But the cards are out.