Hi Ladies, my sincere apologies for the very late notice but today's sewing day is cancelled. Off to the doctor this morning for some pain relief from some muscle spasms that are rendering me useless. So sorry gals.

Crazy Busy but it is all Good Fun

Last weekend I was in Mumbai trying in vain to find a mill that could produce our flannel but sadly none of the leads panned out and I was not able to find flannel to meet our quality standards. Not to worry I still purchased a bit of cotton anyway. (Really you didn't expect me to go to a fabric souk and not buy!!).

Yesterday we had a table at the WGO Winter Bazaar, and thank you to the ladies who dropped by to say hi and a special thank you to lovely Nalini who helped me out on the table spreading the word about DfG. The reception we got from ladies was fantastic and I think we may have found a new volunteers.

Monday 28th we are sewing bags to sell at the MWF Church Christmas fair on Saturday 3rd December. This is an all or nothing day, foot to the floor, scissors sharpened and ready to slice, sergers flying at full speed kind of day! We start at 9.30am, bring a travel mug for your coffee as no open cups allowed near the fabric gals. Using the same bag pattern as DfG just in funky prints to sell so we can buy more fabric (insert mad woman evil laugh here). This all out madness will happen at my house in Atheiba, just behind al fair and we kick off at 9.30am until 1pm. Please send me a message if you can attend and what your "talent" is. You ladies rock my days! Thanks

And for Panagiota, Ann, and Lisa ... 

The 29th we have the TAISM group volunteer event. And we will also have the rescheduledTAISM moms sewing morning with Paula.

We will be participating in the Muscat Women's Fellowship Christmas Bazaar on Saturday 3rd December at the Ghala Church hall. Please come along and say hi.

And finally we will have our December volunteer morning on Sunday 4th December at Bhaja Hall as usual. Kicking off at 8.45am until 12.30pm. I am pretty excited as will be doing our first Kit Packing and aim to have 100 kits packed and ready to go by the end of the morning. We will still be sewing as usual too.

On the 6th December we are having another TAISM volunteer event which will be the last before the winter break.

After the 6th I will slow down my DfGMO speed so that I can spend some time with my family over their winter break holidays. Thanks for your understanding.

Many thanks for all your support.

Public Holiday Announced

The holiday for National Day has been declared as Wednesday 23rd November and Thursday 24th November (great for those celebrating Thanksgiving!). 

Ladies looks like we need to reschedule our sewing day! I am going to suggest Monday 28th from 9.30am until 1pm. This will be to cut and sew gift bags to sell at the Church Fair on the 3rd December. Not a lot of wiggle room there but we will do it ;-) Please let me know if you can make it.

Many Hands do Lighten the Load.

A very productive morning at DfGMO HQ preping for the sew @home shield kits and for the next volunteer day on the 4th. Thanks Ladies, great work and great laughs as usual.

We have another sew@DFGMO HQ on the 24th November (as long as it is not called as a holiday) so we can cut and sew bags to sell at the craft fair to raise money for DfGMO.

We will also be selling some lovely little gifts ... Very limited stock.

a VERY busy week!

Wow, what a busy week we just had.

Sunday 6th November we had our Volunteer day and WOW are we excited that next month we are going to ASSEMBLE 150 kits! Next volunteer day is Sunday 4th December please mark it in your diaries.

On Monday we had a TAISM Mom's sewing morning at Paula's house. This was the pilot for a morning session and it went very well. Thank you to the lovely mom's who came and made bags, cut pockets and serged / overlocked liners. We were so super busy that I forgot to take some photos!

Tuesday afternoon / evening was the second TAISM meet up. We were very busy getting pockets cut, ironed and stitched ready for the upcoming shields. Thankfully we had enough hands on deck to also get some drawstring bags threaded. It was a very productive session. We will be meeting next on Tuesday 29th 3.45pm in the HS commons.

Also the very active, social and lovely "Latino Ladies" were busy getting many bags made. These ladies know how to sew and iron like there is no tomorrow, they are like machines I tell you! Thank you ladies. Also some of the ladies attend a Yoga class and we were very honoured and grateful to receive a 50 rial donation from the class - such love, thank you so much. We will be purchasing some ladies size underwear with that money. 

And now it is time for an update on how we are going towards our goal of 400 kits for Lebanon (we will update the 100 kits for Uganda at a later stage).

I am only listing fully completed components that I have here in stock ...

Drawstring Bags  - we have 260  that is 65%
(I have 61 yet to thread that will bring it 80%)

Shields - we have  180 that is 22.5%
(I have 98 to be snapped that will bring it to 34.75%)

Washcloths  - we have 410 that is 102%

Liners - we have 1,064 that is 33.25%
(another 100+ in the works)

Ziplocs - we have 1000 that is 125%

Underwear - we have 1152 that is 144%
(we will still need to get more because we have mostly girls sizes and the Lebanon kits will need more women's sizes).

Soaps - we have 1400 that is 350%
(we are still collecting them in case we have any extra weight allowance we will bring more to distributions).

All in all a fantastic effort in a working period of 6 months! I am so proud of each and every person who is contributing to our goal. 

On a final note can I please ask if you are traveling and happen to see a travel size sewing kits in your hotel room, could you please collect them as we are thinking to bring some along with us on distributions so that girls and women in the field can use them at a later date just in case their kit needs a minor repair.

Thank you , to each and every one of you, for the amazing work you put in for our Days for Girls teams. I am proud and humbled. xxxx

Second Muscat Guides

On Wednesday I had the absolute pleasure to join the Second Guides Muscat troop for their meeting and share a little about Days for Girls with them. 

They are a lovely group of young ladies who were very engaged and seemed to really understand the impact that making a kit can have on a girl's life. I think the initial thought of missing 5 days of school a month seemed appealing to them ( it would to my kids too, lol) but when they understood the long term implications you could se their minds working away. I think the idea of being married at 14 with a baby soon to follow did not appeal to them nor did not having the opportunity to go to college or find a job later. 

These wonderful 8 young ladies and their lovely troop leaders then helped by threading our completed  drawstring bags. They got the hang of it very quickly and between them accomplished 40 bags in 30 minutes - great job! I was telling the girls as we were threading them that each bag they are touching will be in the hands of a girl or woman next year and that it will make her life so much better. Their smiles were priceless. 

They also donated a large bag of soaps which was so lovely of them. 

Thank you Second Muscat Guides, you gals rock!