Goods 4 Girls-- sanitary supplies....

[bunnyjadwiga]

After having spent a goodly amount of time thinking about sanitary supplies for menstruation in pre-modern cultures, I feel obliged to talk about the movement to donate new, unused, reusable sanitary pads for young women in developing countries. Crunchy Chicken came up with this idea:
http://www.goods4girls.org/

Great idea. However, I've never tried to make/use something of this sort, so the instructions she points to are driving me batty. I want something that tells me what kind of fabric and where I can likely get it, as well as patterns. I think this is a great idea, but I really am not in a position to research the entire reusable hygiene supplies movement before doing this.

If someone who is familar with these has clearer instructions or comments on a particular pattern that make them easier to figure out, maybe we can get a group together to make a bunch of these and ship 'em out. (P.S. what keeps them from twisting around, by the way?)

Comments

[thalionar.livejournal.com]

hi! diy_pads has a lot of folks who make their own (i'm not one yet), and mostly it looks like they use cotton flannel, terrycloth and microfiber, you can get the first two at any craft store, and microfiber can be found in automotive and hardware inexpensively.

I haven't made any, but I own a few that are closed by snaps instead of hook and loop tape. When you ask "what keeps them from twisting around" I'm guessing you mean so that the pad is on the underside of the undies? I don't know *what* keeps it from doing so, but I've never had a problem!

[paquerette.livejournal.com]

For absorbant layers, hemp is golden but cheap cotton flannel works. I think I use about 8 layers of flannel. I cut up old nighties so it's threadbare, but if you get new flannel you can probably use less.

I have used felted wool for backing, and polar fleece. With fleece you have to make sure you have the repelling side the right way.

I think PUL is the most common backing, though.

http://www.celticclothswholesale.com/ has supplies.

[madrun.livejournal.com]

Those websites are unnecessarily complicated. I wore washable pads that I sewed myself for five years, and as soon as we are settled I'm going back to it.

You don't need all the "envelopes" and complicated pockets, you really don't.

Take an old towel (or two) and an old waterproof baby pad, the kind that looks like felt. Take your favorite menstrual pad and use that as a pattern. Cut as many of that shape as you can out of the towels and pad, about 3 towel pieces for every waterproof pad piece. Sandwich three towel pieces with a waterproof piece on the bottom, and blanket stitch around the edges. If you're any size over about a 6, the pressure of your inner thighs will keep the pad in place in your panties with no fasteners. If you want to get really really fancy, cut the waterproof layer with "wings" large enough to overlap on the underside and add a snap.

Easy as pie.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

That sounds simpler. I just couldn't figure out how it could stay, because all my life I've had difficulty where shifting appears to cause the stick-in pads to rotate in the horizontal (more or less) plane if they are not firmly anchored. Obviously that may be a personal shape peculiarity. Perhaps I will try your pattern and see how it works for me...

[marietta-sca.livejournal.com]

This does sound much less complicated :) Thank you.

Everything old...

[kandy-elizabet.livejournal.com]

When I started my period (no, I'm not going to say how long...) my mother taught me all about the belts and the clips and all that cr*p. (Mind you, this was before the stick on kind.) They were disposable pads, though, and she explained patiently how wonderful it was for me to be able to use the disposables becuase when she was my age (and older) they didn't have disposables -- they had rags, held in with special belts and such. Rags that had to be washed out and hung, on a line usually. Basically, there was a tail on each end which folded over a bit of elastic and was pinned (safety pin of course) in place.

What goes around comes around.

There are a couple of vendors of commercial re-usable pads out there as well. More power to those who can use them. If they had come out before it was a moot point for me, I'm not sure I would have been able to, but then my issues (which caused my surgical solution) were pretty extreme.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I've never used or made 'em, or even seen 'em, but on the off-chance this might be useful: www.pacificcoast.net/~manymoons/howto.html .

I found the reference at the LJ post I now quote: "what i found though that makes it easier is that if you make 3 pieces of the same size, fold 2 in half and those are the ones underneath that you tuck the linings into. it really is easy and fun."