TREAT A FRIEND TO SIREN'S BLEND COFFEE

STARBUCKS PARTNERS WITH DAYS FOR GIRLS

In stores throughout the US, Starbucks will be announcing a new partnership to celebrate the release of their Siren's Blend coffee!!
Siren’s Blend was inspired - and created - by trailblazing women of the coffee industry. To celebrate the launch, Starbucks will be brewing and serving Siren’s Blend in all of their U.S. stores.

Now for the exciting part -- from now through Sunday, 9/29, Starbucks will contribute 15 cents for every cup of Siren’s Blend coffee purchased in participating stores, which will be split evenly between International Women’s Coffee Alliance and Days for Girls. PHENOMENAL!
We are thrilled to be selected for this partnership — and hope you will be too.

Given how amazing this is for our mission, brand and programs, we ask that you take a few minutes to spread the news to your friends & family and encourage them to go grab a cup of Siren's Blend drip coffee if they live in the US or find ways to share the news worldwide.

Supporting women around the world is as easy as drinking your morning cup of coffee! I'm SO excited to share that now through 9/29, for every cup of their brand new Siren’s Blend sold, @Starbucks will contribute to Days for Girls! Join us in our mission to turn period into pathways for every girl. everywhere. period. — just by getting a caffeine fix! Visit Starbucks today & learn more at https://www.daysforgirls.org/starbucks

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Please read this National Geographic article about how unsustainable disposable lands and tampons are.

BREAKING THE STIGMA SURROUNDING MENSTRUATION

This is a great article!

WHAT'S IN A KIT?

The leader of another chapter shared these photos of the contents of a  Days for Girls kit, which has the new transport bag instead of Ziplocs.  As mentioned earlier, Days for Girls is going green and won't be including Ziplocs after February 2020.

1 cotton drawstring bag

1 PUL transport bag

2 cotton & PUL shields

8 cotton flannel liners

1 washcloth

2 pairs of undies

1 bar of soap

1 care instructions/calendar card

QUILT SHOW

I was fortunate enough to have a Days for Girls information table at the Pioneer Quilters Unbroken Thread quilt show at the Cottage Grove Armory, September 19-21.  It is a fun old building, and the quilts and vendors were very impressive.  

Quilt shows are always good venues to find somebody's ear to bend about Days for Girls, mainly because the guests are overwhelmingly female and empathic to the plight of the girls we hope to reach, AND because the guests are already mostly people who already enjoy working/playing with fabric.

It was fun to talk about Days for Girls to new folks, and I was able to spread out all the components, articles about DFG, and information sheet.  I was delighted with the number of people expressing interest in joining our first Saturday workdays and/or making donations.  I know many of our current regulars first heard about our work when I had a table at EVQ quilt shows.

LOOPY SERGED CORNERS

This seems to be an issue for many of the sergers.  If your machine isn't happy rounding the corners on the liners and can't do it with the stitching hugging the curve, please try this method.

And remember, whichever method you use, be sure to begin on an end with double fabric, and when you've gone around, overlap that initial serging by one to two inches (you may need to disengage your knife to do this overlap).

QUALITY CONTROL

This is an important issue for me.  These kits are often the nicest things the girls have ever owned, and we want to make them as perfect as we possibly can.  I ask that people learn to sew elsewhere--not practice on our components.  We want you to quality check every item you sew, but often we catch mistakes you missed.  We want all our stitches to be exactly where and how they should be.  Our goal is for each girl to get at least 3 years of use out of her special kit, and appreciate everyone's attention to every detail.

In August, I was proud when the person receiving the 11 boxes containing 527 kits we created and sent to refugee women commented, twice, on how beautiful our kits are.  I agree, and I love that we can be proud of every aspect of them.

Today I read a post on the subject by the head of another chapter, and want to quote excerpts of that here:  

. . . loving the person who will receive the kit that I hold in my hands.  I am connected to her.  She is my neighbor living in the margins of our global society . . . . This kit is not a handout, it is not coming from my leftovers; items too used for me but good enough for her.  This kit is gift.  It cost me time and money, but I joyfully give it to my neighbor.  Because this gift is expensive I hold it carefully, I check to be sure it is perfect in every way.  I look at the stitching knowing it is my best work, my straightest stitching guided by my templates.  I choose bright cheerful colors and patterns because it will make her smile and because it will hide the stains and spare her any embarrassment.  I cut the tag out of the wash cloth, I make sure to burn the edges of the ribbon, I check to be sure there aren’t loose threads because these things can be swept away from my floor, but she does not have the luxury of a waste management system, yet still deserves to live in a clean space.  

We never aspire to "good enough."  Our goal is perfection.

NEXT WORKDAY

Mark our October 5 workday on your calendars and join us for as much time as works for you.  We're at Our Sewing Room from 10 to 4.  

HEARTBREAK IN KENYA

SUICIDE

The following Facebook post from DFG founder and head, Celeste Mergens, elaborates on the heartbreaking story about what happened in Kenya a few days ago:

This morning I got a call from my friend Anita Byegon, a Days for Girls Ambassador of Women's Health for Bomet County, Kenya.

She had just returned from a school there where a 12-year-old girl (the media says 14, but the mother told Anita she was 12) committed suicide after being shamed about a menses stain on her uniform during class. I don't usually highlight the worst of the things we hear that girls go through. Days for Girls chooses to feature the good that can happen when girls, women, and communities have what they need. But today, I speak for Jacqueline, and the price she had to pay for lack of a pad and vital health knowledge. Today, her voice matters.

Here is what Anita shares that she had learned. On Friday, September 6th, 2019, at approximately 11 am in Bomet County, Kenya, 12-year-old Jacqueline, and three other students were asked to go get pencils for a writing assignment. The two other students rose, Jacqueline did not stand. The teacher pushed her, demanding that she stand. Reluctantly Jacqueline complied, revealing a red stain spreading across the back of her dress. She had just started her first period. Her Class Six teacher chided her, calling her dirty for soiling her dress. The teacher told her to stand outside while she went to the office to get a pad. Though the government had provided a few pads for the “most needy cases,” the school had no remaining menstrual supplies to offer, they were used up by other pupils. Before the teacher even returned, Jacqueline had gone home crying. 

Her mother, who had to leave to tend to another daughter who has been at the hospital for several months, says that she left having given Jacqueline instruction to go fetch water with the Jerry can with the rope tied to it to gather water, then to wash up and return to school. Jacqueline never returned. The same rope she took to the river to fetch water, is the rope that she used to hang herself from a tree near there. The neighbor found her body cold. 

Shortly afterward, WhatsApp and Facebook messages started coming into Anita Byegon, a Days for Girls Ambassador of Women’s Health of Bomet County. Could she come to help? Within 20 minutes, she arrived at the school. She listened and cried with the students and teachers. Anita showed the teachers and District leaders the Days for Girls education and pad system she is passionate about and expert in. Everyone agreed that the washable DfG pads would help the students count on having what they needed, but the education would have kept this girl alive. Jacqueline’s shame would have been transformed to respect for her body. The teacher would have been less likely to have made the mistake of shaming. The classroom would have been challenged to rise above mocking. 

On Tuesday the 10th more than 200 people came to the school with the girl’s mother to protest the school and leaders for not ensuring the girl’s safety. They tore down the gates to the school in anger. They asked the police to take action against the teacher. 

Anita asked those gathered to pitch in to ensure that school had what they needed, “Because of lack of menstrual education, we have lost a girl. A few boxes of pads and teaching them how to use it is not going to change this. Complete health and safety education can change the shame.”Anita has promised to return within 5 days with the education and Days for Girls kits for every girl, and teacher at the school.I'm so glad this is something we can change together, because this, this breaks my heart. And it is also a reminder that we have so much more to do. But this is something that must change. And it can, together. Thank you Anita. And thank you to all who step in to help Days for Girls around the world. We must go faster. Dignity, safety, lives can't wait.@daysforgirls

This is infuriating and heartbreaking.   I'd heard that girls are often humiliated for menstrual stains on their skirts, but frankly, it never dawned on me that that ridicule would come from their teacher.  

I was also shocked to learn that girls in several countries have disclosed to Days for Girls volunteers that teachers and headmasters at their schools would trade sexual favors for sanitary napkins. Kenya was the first place this was heard, and it's come up in other countries too: "Thank you, Days for Girls--now we won't have to let them use us."

This is one of many reasons why we are so passionate about these kits and the education that goes with them.  Days for Girls now also has an education program for the men and boys, called Men Who Know. 

Kenya happens to be the country to which we have sent the most kits for distribution, and have also gotten supplies into the hands of the Christine Khamasi (you may remember her from an earlier post), head of the Nairobi Days for Girls Enterprise, helping them reach more girls.  

If this touches your heart, PLEASE support us with your talents and/or funds, to help us continue changing lives.  Donations are  tax deductible.  You can donate online (and a processing fee will be deducted) or give me cash or a check made out to Days for Girls, with "Eugene Chapter" in the memo line (no processing fee for checks or cash).  Either way, the funds will go to our chapter and you'll get an official receipt from Days for Girls International. If you happen to come across a good deal on the supplies we need for our kits, that's great too, and I can give you a receipt for your "in-kind" donation.  Below is the most up-to-date wish list for our chapter.

OUR WISH LIST

Here's the most up-to-date list of supplies we need, mostly in order of current need:

DAYS FOR GIRLS

  Eugene/Springfield Chapter

Donations Wish List

Fabric restrictions:  Medium/dark to dark colors, in busy stain-hiding designs, such as florals. Because of cultural considerations, we need to avoid prints depicting weapons, people/animals with faces, insects (butterflies are OK), patriotic, camouflage, food, religion, words, or holidays.  Avoid solids.  No metallics/glittery.

Cotton or cotton blend underpants, girls' sizes 10, 12, 14 & 16, and smaller women’ sizes, as colorful as possible (for hiding stains). The styles we use are bikini (preferred by most of the girls), briefs, and hipsters.  Please no boy shorts or thong styles.  Fabric restrictions apply here too (except that solids are great). Do not wash the undies. 

PUL fabric  in colorful prints or solids (remember, no faces or juvenile prints).  Babyville is one brand.

Polyester serger thread—good quality, medium/darker colors.

Polyester thread in medium and dark colors (Gutermann is a good brand).  

Quality cotton flannel(see fabric restrictions above).  If you have time to wash, dry and press it, that’s greatly appreciated. Better quality is more absorbent, better for our kits.  We are phasing away from the thinner JoAnn's Snuggle flannel.

Rotary cutter blades, 45mm or 60mm

Quality cotton fabric, the prettier the better. (see fabric restrictions above).  We get such gorgeous donations from local quiltmakers!  I seriously believe that we may make the most beautiful quilts of any team, chapter or enterprise in the world!

Cotton washcloths, in darker colors.

MORE ON ADJUSTING YOUR SERGER TENSION

A week or two ago, I sent out an email about the sub-par serging some machines are doing on our liners.  If your serger stitches are less than perfect, here's some adjusting tips from Nancy Zieman's website.  BTW, her site is where I first read about Days for Girls--she interviewed DFG founder Celeste Mergens and I was hooked.

Here's another serger site I've found useful in the past.

UPCOMING DATES OF NOTE:

Saturday, October 5:   Our regular first-Saturday workday at Our Sewing Room. 

Friday, October 11:  International Day of the Girl.  

Saturday, October 19:  National Period Day.  Festivities in Portland--in part protesting and drawing attention to period poverty and the taxes some states levy on feminine hygiene products.  For example, did you know that in California, menstrual supplies are taxed, but chocolate is not?

Friday, November 1:   11th birthday of Days for Girls International.  It was in celebration of this milestone that DFG decided to send 11,000 kits to refugee girls and women in each of three, then four countries:  Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and South Sudan.  We contributed 527 of those last month.  It will be interesting to read the final numbers, which should be available soon. I'm hoping even more than 33,000 girls and women were reached--I know we packed in an additional 27 over the 500 we pledged, to firmly fill all eleven boxes.  Maybe many others did too!

Saturday, November 2:  Our regular first-Saturday workday at Our Sewing Room.  You're encouraged to bring presents for making Days for Girls kits!  Scroll up for our wish list.  

Wow--It would have been my mother's 100th birthday that day!  I'll bring a cake in her honor and memory.  She's the one who gave me a love and appreciation for fabric and sewing, so, in part, she's responsible for my involvement in Days for Girls!

CHANGES

THE PLASTICS PROBLEM

We're all increasingly aware of the problem plastic has become in our world.  It's so frustrating to be unable to buy many things in the supermarket without them being encased in some form of plastic.  

I was delighted to see this news about the European countries today.

We were impressed when Kenya decided to put some teeth into their single-use plastics ban, and consequently, Days for Girls created a substitute for the two Ziplocs we include in kits.  They called it a Transport Bag, and it was made of PUL with a grosgrain ribbon.  

The design was announced less than two weeks before we were sending off 250 kits to Kenya.  Our volunteers and the generous leaders of two other chapters put in long hours getting enough transport bags made for that distribution. It was not a fun task.  PUL is slippery stuff, and who had ever heard of faux backstitching on a serger?

We got our bags made in time, and since then DFG sewing gurus have been tweaking and redesigning the transport bag.  With no pending requests to countries with bans on single-use plastic bags, I chose not to make any of the new designs, figuring they'd change some more.  I'm glad I waited.

Days for Girls International made a BIG announcement in August.  While Kenya (and now a handful of maybe 6 other countries) have a plastic ban, for the others we're still sending two freezer-weight gallon Ziplocs in each kit.  But, starting in March, every kit will contain only the Transport Bag made of PUL.  Ziplocs will be a thing of the past.

Happily, the latest revision of the Transport Bag seems to be a great improvement.  It's a combination of sewing, serging, and most important, pressing to fuse the edges together.  This pressing is the trickiest step, and each person will have to determine the setting and length of time that works best on their particular iron.    

3

3

I've made 4 of the new transport bags.  They're fast and easy.  But for now, that's all we'll make, as there are already rumblings about tweaking the measurements.  The bag on the left has the flap closed. On the right, the flap is flipped to the back and I inserted a shield with liner.

 

I appreciate the fact that Days for Girls listens to the people who construct the components as well as the girls and women who receive them.  The changes in design reflect that.  This transport bag is iteration number 29 of our kits. 

To imagine this new design, think of the little plastic sandwich bags you can buy with the fold-over flap at the top.  




These two photos show 2 complete kits:  Drawstring bag, transport bag, 2 shields, 8 liners, 2 pairs of undies, a washcloth, and the information card.






Of course, there are always complications.  This time it's the PUL.  Polyurethane laminate (PUL) is best known to sewers for its use as a moisture barrier in washable diaper covers.  JoAnn's typically carries two prints that don't have faces.  Most other sources online are much more expensive than what we can obtain at JoAnn's with a coupon.  Oh, and JoAnn employees say they're going to stop carrying PUL.  I predict that eventually our headquarters will coordinate PUL sourcing and get the best deals on delightful PUL prints for our teams and chapters worldwide.  But for now, we're wondering where we'll find the best prices.  If you happen to know somebody who has a diaper-making business and would like to go in on a wholesale order with us, please let me know.

BARRIERS

Please read this article from the Global Partnership for Education.    And then think of the thousands of girls who have received a kit you contributed to and/or worked on.  I often touch on some of these statistics when I speak to a group.  We have changed so many lives.

AND CLOSER TO HOME

It breaks my heart, even with so many of us putting so much of our lives into making sure that girls and women have a reasonable way to deal with their periods, that in the inhumane concentration camps our OWN government is running, they often have nothing to use in those barbaric conditions.   Add that to all the other cruelties.

Please read this article from Newsweek.

It is heartbreaking to realize what this administration has done to our country.  Please vote.

BREAKING THE STIGMA SURROUNDING MENSTRUATION

This is a great article!

PUPPET

We have many dedicated volunteers.  Some are gifted sewers, some are aces on their sergers.  Some wield the snap press or know how to get the most use out of fabric on the Accuquilt. Some don't have those skills/interests, but believe in our cause, and volunteer regularly to handle many other tasks.  It's really a wonderful team effort.

Take our flannel liners, for example.  I count 13 separate tasks from beginning to end:

1. buying the fabric
2. washing and drying
3. pressing
4. cutting into wide and narrow strips
5. serging the narrow strips
6. pairing up narrow and wide strips
7. pinning them
8. straight sewing them together
9. cutting them into squares
10. serging around the perimeter
11. finishing off the thread ends
12. quality checking
13. folding and mixing up colors

At our September 7 workday, as we were getting close to packing up for the day, Sally was doing her normal remarkable job of serging the perimeters (step 10).  She found one liner on which somebody had missed half of step 8--only one side of the hot spot had been sewn down.  She brought it over to me, with her hand slipped in between the two layers of flannel, and said, "Look, I found a menstrual puppet!"

QUALITY CONTROL ON SERGING

If you mostly only see the liners you serge, you may not realize the range of finishes we get.  As I mentioned in the reminder email I sent out September 6, we're getting lots turned in that show tension and other issues.

Threads cut.  Some loops off fabric

Loops off fabric

Nice.  Loops hug corner curve.  Good tension

Gold standard serging, but questionable thread color choice.
We DO have various shades of blue and turquoise thread available!

Serging looks good on the turquoise one.
The red one has tension issues and the stitches are too far apart.   12-15 stitches per inch is good.

I've included a ruler in the photos, so you can visualize the stitch width and length.

Other tips:  

Days for Girls requires that our serging on liners be done with a 4-thread machine.  

Please start and stop on the end with two layers of fabric.  This part of the liner will receive less wear and tear, so that's a safer place to have thread ends.

As you finish serging around the perimeter, overlap 1 to 2 inches.  I'm getting some that have the serging overlapped a scant 1/2 inch.  DFG's minimum is one inch.  On some machines, you have to disengage the knife while you overlap.  On Saturday, Sally showed me how to do that on her Brother.

Make sure you're using matching polyester serging thread.  We have dozens of cones of thread for that purpose.

Leave a tail of at least 1/2" when you're done.  If you cut the tail to 1/2" and gently rub/separate those 4 threads, the 2 looper threads will be longer.  Gently pull on those until they form a knot at the fabric (too much pulling makes a pucker) and then trim off all 4 threads.  AND, we have somebody who enjoys this step, so it's ok to leave them with tails ready for her.

With the availability of videos online, you can get some tutoring on whichever step(s) you need.  Try googling "serging curves" or "disengage serger knife," etc.  As mentioned before, different brands and models of sergers have their special features, so all you see/read may not apply to yours.  You might add your serger's brand name to the search terms you use.  And then, there's always your manual.  Especially if what you need to tweak is your tension.

SHIELD-MAKING TIPS AND REMINDERS

Sometimes I'll give you front and back fabrics that don't match.  The lighter one should always be on the back (non-pocket) side of the shield, which gets fewer stains.  We're told that the pockets are the areas that get the most stains, so those should always be busy darker prints.  Also think of this if one side of a pocket's print is more stain-hiding than the other--have the darker/busier facing out.

Fabric with metallic in the design is fine for bags, but we don't use that for shields.

Carefully check your work to make sure those tiny seam allowances are holding all layers. And that you backstitched the pocket edges when topstitching.

You should always check the inside width of the pockets after topstitching.  It must be at least 3.25".  I have little hard-plastic pocket testers if you need one.

I also have some cardboard pressing aids that you can slip inside the shield after you've turned it and are pressing before you deal with closing the ends.  They save your fingers from burns.  If you are one of our shield makers and I haven't given you one, let me know.

SEPTEMBER WORKDAY

We had a productive crowd, including some newbies, and accomplished so much!  Thanks to all who came, and my apologies for not taking more pictures.  Usually I set my alarm to go off periodically to remind me to photograph the crew, but forgot to this time and I only remembered on my own once.

NEXT TIME

See you October 5th, same time, same place.