February Update

We have a serious need for girls underwear right now, specifically sizes 10 and 12.  

If you have a chance to pick some underwear up soon, please follow these guidelines:

• Girls' sizes 10 and 12
• Cotton or cotton blend
• Styles  that are good:  briefs and hipsters
• Styles we can't use:  bikini, boy cut/shorts, thongs
• Avoid fabrics that depict any animals, insects, camouflage or people 
• As colorful as possible

Please join us this Sunday, February 15 for our monthly workday at Our Sewing Room, 448 Main Street, in Springfield.  We will be there from 10 am to 5 pm.  Come for as much time as works for you.

We have sewing and serging jobs for those of you who are great on those machines.  
If you're not, we have lots of fabric that needs pressing.   
And lots more that needs cutting out, with your sharp scissors or Our Sewing Room's Accuquilt die-cutter.  

Things to bring:

• Sharp scissors
• Pins
• Thread snips
• A sewing machine or serger if you will be sewing or serging and prefer to use your own
• Lunch if you want to brown-bag it
• Any donations of polyester thread, underwear, cotton fabric, PUL, Ziploc gallon freezer bags, washcloths, soap, or money
• Interested friends

A while back I heard from Priscilla in Corvallis that she'd like to donate some of her fabric to our Days for Girls group.   Last week she came to Eugene and brought two bags brimming with fabric for Days for Girls.  She had paid close attention to the guidelines, and left me with fingers itching to cut into the colorful prints!  

Isn't this an appealing batch of fabrics?  They'll make wonderful shields and bags!

If you have fabric you'd like to liberate from your stash, do keep us in mind.  We need to follow the Days for Girls guidelines, so please be selective.  For shields, we use quilter's quality cotton in medium to dark, busy prints.  Because of taboos in some cultures, we don't use fabric with patterns depicting people, any kind of animal or insect, camouflage, weapons, religion, and anything culturally specific.

We use our most beautiful, most spectacular cotton prints for the bags.  

The girls carry the bags to school with them daily, and the prints and colors are very important to them.  One yard makes 4 bags, but we can make one bag out of a piece just 12" by 29".

Our biggest need is for cotton flannel.  Each kit uses about a yard of flannel for the liners.  Better quality flannels are thicker and more absorbent, so please buy the best quality you can afford.  

Fabric manufacturers seem to be concentrating on cute juvenile and animal prints these days, or prints with a lot of white in the design.  Not ideal for us.  

What is perfect for Days for Girls is an all-over design, such as a floral, in darker colors, that will hide stains well.  We are finding that flannels sold a few years ago are more apt to fit this description.  

Maybe you have some older, darker, busy flannel prints at home--just waiting for the perfect project.  Days for Girls would love to be that project!