2KIND Project

My youngest sister began something last September, its called the 2KIND Project.  She says:

I began 2KIND during a time that I wasn't completely happy. I was miserable at my job and I felt like I wasn't doing anything that was important or making a difference.

She prints and sells t-shirts with the 2KIND logo to raise money for charity. 

My hopes for those who purchase a shirt off of this site is that you will not only proudly wear the logo across your chest, but that you will also take a step in being 2KIND every day.

Making a difference, one shirt at a time.

Since then, she's become happy and has met her 2KIND goals, just about twice now.  Girls on the Run of the Kansas City Metro Area as her charity this  year. Along with selling t-shirts, she also helps organize volunteer groups, promote kindness, organize groups for 5K's, and a variety of other nice things.  You could check out her webpage or Facebook to see more information.

One of her upcoming events is to have a group of about 20 people participate in the Glow Run 5K.  Usually, she has her group wear matching t-shirts, but those are provided by the 5K, so she is trying something different: headbands.  That's where I come in.  We figured out how to make some simple headbands and embroidered them with the 2KIND logo...

 in glow-in-the dark thread.

I learned some things throughout the process.  Allow me to share.  For those of you who find yourselves making and embroidering headbands, here are some tips I've discovered:

• Cut your knit (I used the thickest I could find)* in rectangle approximately 16" by 4.5".
• Machine embroider with lots of stabalizer.  I used: 1 layer of sticky, 1 layer of iron-on, (the fabric), and 1 layer of ultra-solvy.  
• Underfill the area before stitiching the design.  This helps with non-distortion of the pattern when the fabric is stretched.
•  Don't use thick glow-thread.  It just bunches up.

*It is almost impossible to find stretchy terry cloth (called French terry I think), especially in white or black.  So instead of sweatbands, we made headbands.  Not as cool, but still fun.

Embroidery Machine Troubles

In February of this year I got my embroidery machine. It was a Christmas gift from my husband and my mom. We did research and went around to places to get demos and see what was available. We decided in a Brother PE750-D. The D is for Disney and has been completely unnecessary for me. But that's not the point. Its an embroidery only machine and its been good to me. Until Monday, 11/15/10.

I started to embroider a chi^2 burp cloth. I went to go check on my napping child and when I came back, the machine said "A safety device has been activated." Ok? The manual said I likely had thread somewhere. So I took it apart as best I could, but saw no problem. The machine however, knew something I didn't.

After calling around locally and the place I bought it and my husband, I learned that there would be a 2 week turn around and about 60$ cost to fix it. Jeepers, that's crummy. But my husband suggested I take a 3 hour drive to Wichita (where I bought the machine) and see if they could fix it by Thanksgiving, since we'd be in town then. Well, to save me some typing and you some reading, I'll just tell the result.

A-1 Singer Sewing Center in Wichita fixed my machine the day I brought it in (which was this past Wednesday, the 17th). They said it was a thread jam in the needle bar. But they embroidered up a piece and I will do the same this weekend!

So happy to have it back and so fast too!

My New Embroidery Machine

For Christmas, my mom and my husband got together on a surprise gift for me. The last gift I opened was a box of about 6 spools of thread with a note that had a picture stapled to it. As I moved aside the thread and started to read the note, I knew what it was. They had decided to buy me an embroidery machine! I cried (partly because I'm pregnant, partly because I was so touched!). My husband and I had said how cool it would be if I could get one to use and make more products and my products faster/neater. But they are expensive, especially since I'd need software to create my own embroidery files. I figured it would cost around 1500$. That is a lot of money to spend on something that has most of its use in a hobby of mine.

But the two of them got together and decided to get me one! We looked around after Christmas at shops. I knew very little of embroidery machines and so did my mom and my husband. After one day of looking, we were much more informed, but still spent a few more weeks researching and thinking about it. Then, the day before the Superbowl, we visited one of the shops we origianlly went to for help, and purchased me a Brother PE-750D. It's an embroidery only machine that can connect to my computer via USB cable. Which is a feature I felt I needed.


That Monday I played around with it. Basically I just set it up and embroidered my Etsy shop name on some scrap fabric.


Now the hard part became finding a software that could take the images I currently have as vector images and automatically digitize them. Without spending 1000$. I tried free programs like SofieSew and Mad Punch, but they were not very easy to use and didn't look like they would do what I want. I don't actually know if they can because I got too frustrated trying to use the programs to find out. So I downloaded the trial of Embird. But you can't trail the vector import/autodigitizing with the demo of Studio and you can't save. Plus the program would still cost me almost 500$. Still a lot of money.

Then my husband found Stitch Era Universal. It's "free" and pretty easy to use. We installed it on my computer last night and successfully imported a .emf file, had it auto-digitize and then cleaned it up a little. After an export, plugging it into my machine and clicking a few buttons, we ended up with one of my first embroidered pieces!


I placed the fabric in the hoop the wrong way, so I can't turn this into a coffee cozy as I'd planned, but I will still do something with it. But isn't that neat! It's a completely original design from start to almost-finish in less than one evening (thanks to my husband)!

Also, the ugly green "cozy" to the right of the embroidered piece is a trial product. The way I currently make cozies, they have an elastic loop with a button to hold them shut. Yes this works, but it seems bulky. So I've been trying to create a less bulky design. This green one is it, just in really ugly fashion. The final product would use nicer fabric, and be stitched much neater.

But its wonderful fun! I wish I had more time in a day to sit and create patterns then watch the machine do it's magic!

New Items

I've got quite a few ideas for new items for my Etsy shop.

I plan to make larger pillows, that can actually be used to lay one's head on. I've already bought materials to make them, it's just a matter of creating something I like enough to share with others. I'd like to have one up in my shop by this Friday. Wish me luck.

I also plan to make a baby quilt. I've already bought fabric and have a good mathy idea. It's just a matter of ironing, cutting, piecing, assembling, quilting, and finishing. Not too much work. :) The green and tan fabric will be used. But the three together are going to be used for a different quilt, one for my baby girl due in May!


And, my wonderful husband and fabulous mom are getting me an embroidery machine for Christmas! We've been researching and looking around and I will probalby have one by the SuperBowl. I am so excited!! That opens up so many opportunities for me to create new things! I plan to use it to make my current plushies and cozies quicker and neater and I have some ideas for new items as well.

I'm excited!

All Caught Up

I've finished all of my requested items. :)

I made a Shapiro-Wilk cross stitch, a Pythagorean Theorem coffee cozy, some "bell curves", a black standard normal, and two green chi-squares. I also had some requests for the green standard normal distributions and some magnets. All done! Now I can make some other things that I've been out of.

I've been considering getting an embroidery machine. They are expensive. Especially since I'd like software that allows me to take any image I make and digitize it. But I can keep considering and maybe one day I'll go ahead and splurge. I'm sure it'd be loads of fun and I'd use it a bunch. Any one have any suggestions/comments on embroidery machines? I'm a pretty uninformed audience.