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.

Tips for Working with Fleece

I could also have titled this post "Why its important to use fresh needles." That is really my main point.

I bought some fleece in colors I liked with the goal to create a larger sized distribution pillow. Back in July I made a large version of the standard normal plushie. I basically wanted a version of that, but without the face. I find that a lot of my items are cute, which isn't a problem. It just really limits the gentlemen from desiring my items. How many males who are statistically inclined do you know that would purchase a cute little pale green plushie for themselves? Not many.

But even aside from that, I too would enjoy having a throw pillow on my couch that represented my love of statistics. So I'm creating this for everyone!

The point is, I started making this pillow on Monday evening. It was very frustrating. My top thread kept shredding and I couldn't stitch more than 1.5" without having to rethread the machine. Needless to say, I didn't get very far that night. I ended with a pile of scrap fabric with random stitches. My next step was to research on the world wide web and solve all my problems. I found a webpage with many suggestions, Sewing with Fleece Fabric. Feel free to browse on over and read up. My summary is below.

• Use new machine needles. I used Universal 80/12 and they worked great.
• Use 100% polyester thread. I only used it for the top thread, I kept my bobbin a cotton covered polyester and had no problems.

And that is it. I tried my serger, but that likely needs new needles too. Since fleece doesn't fray, I ended up not using the serger and just using my old Singer. She worked great (but only after I blamed the problem on her being old, dirty, and cheap).


You can check out my Nausicaa Distribution shop listing for the normal pillow here.