The sewing produced snippets of fabric every day, and Shirin Aunty suggested collecting them. 'Waste nothing - remember, there is a purpose for everything. These scraps can be very useful.' She quickly demonstrated by making a lumpy sanitary pad.
'What a good idea,' said Dina. Her budget needed all the help it could get. The textile stuffing was not as absorbent as the pads she used to buy, but the homemade ones could be changed more frequently since they cost nothing.
Sometimes Husband of Mine calls me "Dina Dilal". She is the central character in the stunning book, A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry. I squirrel away scraps of my sewing fabric to make cloth mama pads for myself, as she does.
In the five years since I first started using these, the reusable cloth market (both nappies and mama pads) has exploded in New Zealand.
Check out these products:
Outrageous Pads
Mooncup Menstrual Cup
Red Rag
Sew your own
I am very thankful we don't live A Fine Balance lifestyle like the characters in this book, but it's great to be able to make a positive choice to use cloth for myself. It certainly helps our budget, feels more "natural" and give me a feeling of independence from big companies when I skip the disposable products aisle in the supermarket.
