Days for Girls is a great voluntary organisation where volunteers make up reusable menstrual health kits to be used by girls and women in a number of countries around the world. The kits help to improve the lives of girls and women who can't access work or education for one week each month because they have their period. There are also kits for women who've just given birth.
I enjoy the sewing for our local Days for Girls group as I know that I am helping another female somewhere in the world. The sewing isn't difficult, although we do have to be precise as the quality standards for each component are strict. This month, I also brought home lengths of fabrics to be cut up for the various components.
There are often small pieces of fabric left over from making the kits, which our group use to make small quilts for the babies born to the women our heavy-flow kits go to. I had a heap of fabric pieces, both cotton and flannel, from last year's kit-making, which were turned into quilts suitable for newborn babies. The quilts are generally sized around 30" x 36". I ended up finishing eight of them in March. The backings and bindings were all from my stash.
So frustrating in January when my main sewing machine encountered a hiccup. My fault entirely, according to the sewing machine mechanic, who told me off for trying to mend my son's backpack strap on the machine. I really should have used one of the older heavy duty machines I have but was too lazy to go and get it out and set it up. I ended up fixing the backpack strap by hand! Anyway, it took a couple of weeks to get to the mechanic. I was fairly busy in that period anyway, with overseas visitors and travelling around a few local places with them. Three lots of overseas visitors in the first three months of the year!
I've spent a lot of time on the menstrual health kits, mainly sewing shields. And just to get some sewing for me done, I completed a number of 6” scrap potato chip blocks to add to the growing pile. I need to work out what I will be doing with them. I have some plans but nothing definite yet. It is so satisfying to make these - mindless sewing, using up scraps, finished blocks when done, a quilt on the way.
I'm still working away on the Quatro quilt, designed by Sue Daley. It is good hand sewing to do while watching TV. I laid out the quilt on the floor to work out how many more different blocks I needed to make. As you can see, there are a few more flowers (as I call them) to make for this round, and more light grey crosses needed as well. It is the second last round so the end is in sight! (The rugs on the floor distract from the quilt bocks, sorry.)
March 2026 fabric tally
Fabric used: - 7 m Fabric acquired: + 0 m
Don't forget that the fabric tally returned to zero at the beginning of the year. So we will see how I go at using up some of my stash this year.
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