Cool Ties-Crafting for Our Troops

As you all know, my husband is in the Army. Well, he trains soldiers who are leaving for Iraq. This means he and the rest of his unit spend 12-15 hours a day out in the heat in full uniform. The heat index in our area has been reaching 110 degrees on some days (ack!), so they've had numerous guys suffering from heat stroke. I'd heard talk of cool ties around the web, and finally took the time to hunt down the instructions. They call for polymer granules, which I had a bit of a hard time finding, but come to find out, they are used in gardening. The brand name I finally found was SoilMoist, and I had to go to a local nursery to get it-it wasn't available at Walmart or Home Depot, etc. that I could find.

A few months ago, I had found some fabric on the Wal-Mart $1 table that was nylon and printed with the ACU print of the military issue uniforms, and I had picked some up thinking I'd find something neat to do with it. I used it for this project, so it blends in well with their uniforms. These are really easy to do, and there are a bunch of different websites out there with instructions. I'm working on customizing the directions to allow for different lengths, I also put Velcro on these so they will lay flat and don't need to be tied.

I'm hoping to eventually offer these for customization and also in my Etsy shop for those of us who spend a lot of time working outdoors in the heat-they are great for construction workers, lawncare workers, UPS drivers and the like. But, for now, these serve their purpose perfectly!