Monday, July 9, 2012

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.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Cross-Stitch from the UK

Here is another example of the P-value cross-stitch guide.  These images come to us from Ned in the United Kingdom.  His girlfriend, Sara, stitched up the piece for their friend  - a Lecturer in Psychology - at the University of Oxford. 



Thanks to Ned for the pictures.  And hope your friend enjoys!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

2012 AgStat Conference

We just got back from the 2012 Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture at K-State.  It was great to see some of our professors and some old classmates.  We also got to talk to some current statistics students from around the area and listened to a couple of really good talks.

Really glad we got to go and looking forward to attending next year's conference, too!