Days For Girls Organization

 

Drinks before dinner the night of the White Party

Hey everyone, Donna here.  Sorry I have been MIA for a couple of weeks.  I have been super busy with a number of things lately, and I will probably continue to be that way for a couple more weeks.  Hubby and I went on a nice short little vacation last week to one of our neighboring islands, the Dominican Republic.  We stayed in an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana and gorged ourselves on food and sunshine.  It was a lovely little detour from reality.  Now I am back, but only for a couple of days before I am off to St. Louis to watch Cardinals baseball visit with friends and family for two weeks.  Maybe I'll have time to get some more work done on our 100+ year old house while I'm there.  In fact, that would probably make a great blog post, so stay tuned.  

Anyway, I wanted to take some time to tell you about one of the other things that has been keeping me so busy, an organization called Days for Girls.  I first heard about this organization when Miss Passionate, Miss Content, and I were out thrift store shopping many months ago.  Anjelica (Passionate) pointed out a flyer from the Puerto Rico Chapter of the organization and I filed it away as something to look into later.  Well, quite a bit later, Hollie (Content) moved away and I found myself looking for something to occupy my time again.  Suddenly, I remembered that I had taken a picture of the flyer in order to translate it from Spanish and get more information.  It didn't take long for me to search out their website and start reading.  I think that I was up until 3 am reading through every single piece of information that they had.  

I proceeded to contact the Puerto Rico chapter to see about organizing an event closer to where I live. Ultimately, this led me to start a team at my church and I began organizing presentations, donation sheets, and an actual sewing event.  Since Anjelica had offered to help me get this group going before she moves away, I had to move fast.  I made flyers, wrote up informational pamphlets, and much more.  With Anjelica's help, and the help of another friend of ours, we got together to learn to learn to sew the kits.  It took us awhile, but we figured out all of the components and were ready to show others how to do it.  We got donations from people at church and went shopping for everything we needed.  Finally, the day of the event came and it was a great success.  The women who volunteered were an amazing help and we got some great work done.  Unfortunately we did have some kinks to work through so we didn't get as much done as we would have liked.  However, we have a great start for the next event and I am humbled by the generosity of the women and families at our little Puerto Rican church.

Hopefully by now you are all wondering what this fantastic organization is all about.  If not, I hope you'll keep reading anyway because it addresses such a simple and important key to social change.  Ladies, please imagine if you will, not having access to any kind of feminine hygiene products during your menstrual cycle. No pads, tampons, sponges, cups, nothing!  I've got to tell you, I can't imagine this at all.  Girls and women all over the world are forced to hide in their rooms and miss school and work once a month every single month because of this issue.  According to research, girls "miss up to 8 months of school in just 3 years" simply from lack of access.  In order to try to combat this issue, girls will try to use all sorts of dangerous, unsanitary alternatives, such as rocks, mattress stuffing, and many other things, simply to stay in school. Obviously, these girls often end up with serious infections, leading to a host of easily preventable problems. Often, these girls are sexually exploited in exchange for hygiene.  You can read some of their stories here. This organization, with help from people all over the world, is helping to break the cycle of poverty for these women and girls, by giving them months of education back with some simple tools that allow them to stay in school.         

Days for Girls helps in many ways.  The most obvious being the sewing and distribution of homemade, reusable, sustainable feminine hygiene kits to girls all over the world.  The kits include two moisture barrier shields, eight removable trifold pads, a pair of panties, a washcloth, two ziplock bags for soaking and cleaning, an instruction sheet, a small bar of soap, and a drawstring bag to carry it all in.  These kits are made to last 3 or more years with proper care, and feedback has shown this to be the case.  Days for Girls partners with mission groups, and others to distribute their kits, but they also do so much more.  They have begun training women in countries where their kits are needed to make them themselves.  This is the ultimate in sustainability.  If women learn how to sew their own kits, they will never be without.  Obviously, education is a huge issue that this organization has had to take on as well.  They educate girls in need about hygiene, but they also educate the public about this issue in general.  Education is almost always the key to reducing stigma as well.      

Shields, liners, washcloths, panties, and drawstring bags

So now you are all wondering what you could possibly do to help.  For starters, I urge you to take a look at the Days for Girls website and decide what the best option is for you.  But if you want me to give you some simple options to help, I will.  Find a local team or chapter here and donate your time or materials.  If you don't see a team or chapter near you (as Missouri is severely lacking), start one at your church, your work, or do a fundraiser.  Or, if that is too much of a commitment, just donate fabric and other materials. Trust me, this stuff adds up.  If you know of a group getting ready for a mission trip, put them in touch with Days for Girls for training and opportunities to help.  If knitting is more your style, make some washcloths out of high quality cotton materials to donate.  There are hundreds of ways to get involved and to help, and many of them don't even involve much time or effort.  Below is a list of materials needed to make the kits and here is some info on who to send it to.  If you still feel like you need more information or help, I am just an email or a comment away.

Days for Girls Materials Needed:
PUL fabric (polyurethane laminate fabric, used for making cloth diapers, is waterproof and breathable)
100%  cotton fabric (see guidelines below)
Cotton flannel
Colorful thread
1/2 in. or 5/8 in. twill tape or ribbon
Pins (for sewing)
Snaps
Medium safety pins
Washcloths (keep in mind fabric guidelines below for prints). Can be store bought or crocheted/knitted
Panties: girls size 10-16, women's size 5-6 (keep in mind fabric guidelines below for prints)
Travel sized bars of soap
Ziplock double zipper gallon size freezer bags
You may also donate money either for shipments or for materials.

Guidelines for proper selection of fabric:
Use 100% woven cotton fabric similar to quilter's cotton
Pick colorful fabrics, preferably botanicals, geometrics and batiks
Fabrics should be medium to dark in color to disguise stains
Some prints are offensive or illegal in some communities.  No people, animals, bugs, reptiles, figures, camouflage, guns, knives, culture specific themes, girly-glam.

I hope that this information will inspire you to get out and help others, even if it is not through this organization.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or email me.

Donna  

How to Make a Throw Pillow

DIY Throw Pillows

Hey there everyone. Sorry I've been slacking lately. Man, things have gotten busy busy busy. Hubby has been out of town this past week and is actually only coming home for one night before he's off again next week. I've been trying to get a women's sewing group together at my church for a nonprofit organization called Days for Girls. We will be making reusable feminine hygiene products for impoverished girls all over the world. I highly recommend you look up the organization here. Hopefully I'll be able to post more about that sometime soon.

This has nothing to do with the tutorial, but this is one of the things taking up my time lately.

For now, I am still slacking in terms of this blog, but I have been making these throw pillows to sell at a friend's tropical themed art studio in Rincon. I absolutely have got to get a little bit of income coming in to support all of my little addictions hobbies. Anyway, the reason I say I am still slacking is that this is really more of a non tutorial as it is literally about as basic as sewing can get except for the slip stitch, which is not difficult at all and is also optional. This is my first sewing tutorial though, so please bear with me.

One finished product

Throw Pillow

Materials needed:

One yard of fabric per two pillows (you will have some excess fabric.)
Coordinating thread
Pillow stuffing
Sewing machine
Scissors
Measuring tape
Pins
Sewing needle

1. Determine what size you want your pillows to be.  I make pretty standard 15 x 15 inch pillows here.

The cut squares

2. Cut out two 16 x 16 in squares of fabric per pillow.

3. Lay squares of fabric with right sides together (meaning, the pretty sides are on the inside) and pin.  Make sure to double check the print direction if necessary.

Pinned right sides together

 4. Sew around all but about 3 or 4 inches (to flip) of the square using a 1/4 inch seam allowance (or whatever you are comfortable with).  Make sure to back stitch at the beginning and end.

Sewing around the perimeter

Backstitching at the opening

5. Iron and press the seams open, clip the corners, and turn right side out making sure to poke out the corners.

Corners clipped

Ironing everything nice and flat

Flip the pillow right side out.  Can you tell I kept forgetting to take pictures as I went?

6. Stuff the pillows as much as you like.  Be sure to get it in the corners too.

Stuff with fluff (yeah, I just said that)

Almost done

Ready to be closed up

7. Slip stitch the opening closed or do a top stitch with your sewing machine if you don't want to do that much work by hand.  I don't like the look of top stitching on throw pillows (weird I know) so I do things the hard way.  This is the tutorial I used to learn to slip stitch, although I don't sew the opening closed and then rip it out later.  It would probably help, I'm just a lazy seamstress.

Slip stitching the opening closed.

8. Place pillows on couches/beds and sit back and admire your work.

I hope you enjoyed this easy throw pillow tutorial, and I hope it saves you lots and lots of money on interior decorating.  Have you ever made your own pillows?

Donna