pads for Peru

 For the past few months I have been working on a project, and last week it ended.  A fellow, his wife, and their teenage daughter from my neighborhood are currently in a sweet little village in Peru.  There were 35 people that went with them from our valley.  They are doing something great there, I am not sure what.  All I do know is that they took clothing, hygiene kits, newborn kits, shoes, and these sweet 'feminine hygiene pads'  we made.  There are 25 girls in the village between the ages of 12 and 16, and they don't have any modern way to really deal with that wonderful thing called menstruation.  I was asked as a sewing church member to help with that issue.  I asked ladies from our quilt guild to help, along with the ladies that attend church with me.

 So, we made 120 of these sweet flannel winged outer pads.  I found this pattern on www.hillbillyhousewife.com.  Apparently, this method is preferred by lots of folks, even if they don't live in Peru.  These pads are washable and reusable and are perfect for their intended use!

 The winged outer pads house smaller pads - the absorbent part.  We made 360 of these smaller 3 layered absorbent pads.  They have soft flannel on the outside and either cotton batting or fleece on the inside.
 

 We matched 3 smaller pads with every winged pad.  The great deal here is that you can use one or two smaller pads, or 3 or 4, depending on the need of absorbency.

 After I collected all the pads from all the ladies that helped me make these, Kelsey and I packaged them all together.  Thank you to the ladies from church and quilt guild that helped - you guys are wonderful!  Thanks also to Kelsey.  She was my quality control expert, my pinner, my cutter, my counter, my bundler, and she played her violin for me while I sewed!  She was great. 

 We packaged 8 winged pads, 24 small pads, and 3 pairs of underwear in each package.  We used my FoodSaver to suck all the air out and make them more compact to take to Peru. I wish we could have made one package for each of the 25 girls; we only made 15 packages.  I feel very badly about that, but I have to remember that 15 girls will be happy with us.  There is another group headed back to the same village in August.  Maybe I will buy some more flannel and get busy!