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.

Crinkle Toy for a Nerdy Baby

My daughter enjoys crinkle toys, as I'm sure many babies do. So what would make sense for me to do? Well, make her one of course!

It was quickly decided that I'd make it shaped like a normal distribution. We also decided to use terry cloth for the back and flannel for the front. But how are we going to make it "crinkle"? I first thought of Sun Chip bags. Boy can those babies crinkle!! Jeepers! But being "compostable" I was afraid it wouldn't hold up to drool and washing. So we had to think of something else. I eventually decided to use a thick plastic from a pretzel bag. I know, weird to use trash. But so far it's worked great! It's been chewed on and washed multiple times. I air dry it, and it seems to be holding up really well!

The best part is, she likes it. :)