And now for something completely different! Waterproof pouches, and tube pads

Luna Wolf has an exciting new addition to the shop - waterproof pad pouches!

These beauties are handmade by the lovely Sarah from AngelPadz, and come in large and small sizes. The large size holds approximately 4 medium pads, and is perfect for storing your pads when out and about. It would also be a very attractive make-up or toiletry bag! The small size holds a single liner or medium pad, and fits discreetly into a handbag or pocket. It's great for carrying a spare pad around.

Both sizes are made from quilter's cotton and lined with PUL. The large pouches fasten with zips, and the small ones with snaps. They are available in the new Waterproof Pouches category, and I expect to be ordering many more of them in future!

On a different subject entirely, I have a friend who runs a charity for poorly children. This weekend she received a request for some cloth "tube pads", and is looking for volunteers to sew some. Kids with tubes and buttons often experience leakage, which irritates their skin and makes them sore. They then end up having to wear medical dressings that are uncomfortable, not to mention boring!

Cloth tube pads are very quick and easy to make, and are a great way of using up scraps of fabric. You can find instructions here. I used three layers of flannel for the first few, and one layer of flannel plus one layer of bamboo fleece for the rest.

If you find yourself with an hour to spare, why not whip a few up and send them over to Vikki at Post Pals?

Disposables, Reusables and Guilt

I frequent a number of cloth pad communities (yes, there are communities dedicated to cloth pads!), and every so often, somebody will talk about the guilt they felt (or feel) about using disposable pads.

This makes me sad.

There are lots of reasons to switch to cloth pads - including a desire to minimise your impact on the environment - but guilt should not be one of them. Finding cloth more comfortable than disposables, or being attracted by pretty fabrics are equally legitimate reasons. How you deal with your period should always be your choice, and nobody should feel guilt-tripped into using (or not using) a certain product.

We women already have enough guilt inflicted on us by the unrealistic standards touted by the media. We do not need guilt about our choice of menstrual products added to this load. The right choice of menstrual protection is whatever works best for you, be it disposable or reusable. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, remind them that your body is nobody's business but yours.

July Giveaway: Winner!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the giveaway!

Without further ado, the winner is... eatswithfork! Congratulations! Your email address suggests that your name is Kacie, so well done Kacie, I hope you enjoy your Earthy Batik pad and booster.

Commiserations to those of you who missed out - maybe the next giveaway will be your turn to win.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Summer Giveaway

Yesterday my Facebook page hit 100 "likes", which means it's giveaway time! Thanks so much to everyone who's "liked" the page (I have to put that in quotation marks otherwise it's terrible grammar!) - I love reading your comments and chatting with you.

So, who'd like to win a free pad? The winner of this giveaway will get to choose one of these two pads, and will also receive a handy PUL booster (on the left):

Centre: Book Addict pantiliner, 7.5" long, 2.5" wide when fastened. Backed with light pink microfleece. Suitable for light flow, spotting, or as backup for a menstrual cup or tampon.

Right: Earthy Batik pad, 9" long, 2.6" wide when fastened. Backed with cream fleece. Suitable for medium flow.

To enter, simply comment on this blog post and tell me which pad you would like to win. At 5pm GMT on Thursday 21st July, I will use the random number generator to pick the winning comment. Don't forget to leave an email address so that I can contact you!

Please leave one comment only - multiple entries will be disqualified. As always, international entries are welcome. Good luck, and have fun!

Fabric Binge

A few months back I did some temping for a local newspaper, and I promised my Facebook followers that as soon as the money came through, I'd have a fabric binge. Well, after four months of waiting the cash finally showed up in my bank account... and I headed over to Castle Court Quilter so fast that my feet barely touched the ground.

My fabric haul, in a neat pile of loveliness. Almost too pretty to cut up. Almost.

Swallows on blue and sage, and a corresponding blue, white and sage print. These are all from the Floragaphix range that has been so popular.

Bright florals are always a joy to work with. And they make very cheery pads!

Birds and books.

More batiks, as requested. The batik range is small, but I liked this earthy design and the vibrant red floral.

The ever popular "Gypsy" print, this time in bright red. Should look fabulous with black fleece and snaps.

A couple of old favourites that I'd run out of.

Finally, how organised is this?

A print for this year's holiday pads. Hey, I said HOLIDAY, I didn't even mention the C word! This will sit in my cabinet until November, and until then we will speak of it no more.

Speaking of Facebook, I'm 7 "likes" away from 100. It's very exciting! To show how much your support means to me, I will hold another giveaway as soon as I reach triple figures. If you haven't already liked my Facebook page, please do - the sooner I reach my target, the sooner you get a chance to win a free pad! (That's a menstrual pad, not an iPad. Sorry, you can't play Angry Birds on it.)

Closing my custom order service

During the almost four years that Luna Wolf has been going, I've made many changes. I think it's really important for businesses to evolve and adapt as circumstances change. It keeps things fresh, and ensures that you don't become stuck in a way of doing something that doesn't work anymore.

I've been having a bit of a re-think, and have come to a decision: I will no longer be taking on custom orders.

While I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a creation that is just right for an individual, it has become out of control lately. Custom orders often involve many hours of designing and prototype-making, which I do not charge for. This eats into the time I would normally spend stocking the shop. Less time spent on the shop means less choice, and more people wanting custom orders because they can't find what they want. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

Custom orders also come with a certain amount of time pressure and stress. I usually do them on weekends, to minimise the lost time on the shop. Now that my partner has started working away during the week, the weekend is the only time I get to see her. I've realised that I'm no longer prepared to give up the precious time we have together, for the sake of working a seven day week. Life's too short!

Of course I am grateful and honoured that people want custom orders from me - in a way, the service has become a victim of its own success. But for my own sanity, I need to step back and make my workload more manageable. If I don't, I will burn out. I know you'll understand, and I thank you for it.

I've also made another change, which is small but will hopefully make a big difference. I've changed the channel stitching on all pantiliners to a single wavy line. My signature pointed shape on that small a scale is very difficult to get right, and - you know me - if it isn't perfectly symmetrical, it drives me to despair. The wavy channel stitching seems much more appropriate to the scale of the pantiliners. I've been using it on my own liners for a few months now, and I love how quirky and comfortable it is. More importantly, less time spent unpicking/re-sewing equals more time making pads! Hopefully this will stop me from running out of pantiliners so quickly, and will mean more choice in that section - which is good news all round!

Earth Day Giveaway: Winner!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the Earth Day giveaway. I really enjoyed reading all your comments - it was nice to learn a little bit about you, and you've given me lots of new green ideas to try.

The winner of the giveaway is... Cori!


And this is the pad she chose:


Congratulations Cori, and best of luck with your move!

One of the things my partner and I like to do to help reduce our impact on the environment is to use Freecycle. Items that we no longer use and are unsuitable for charity shop donations all get listed on Freecycle - chances are, they're just what someone else has been looking for. We've met some wonderful people through Freecycle, and helped out some good causes. It works the other way, too - when we needed some old blankets to protect our furniture while moving house, we posted on Freecycle and got several kind offers. My sit-kneel desk chair was also a Freecycle find!

Hope everyone had a happy Earth Day and a happy Easter!

Earth Day Giveaway

This Friday (April 22nd) is Earth Day - a day of awareness and appreciation for our beautiful planet. That seems like a great excuse to have a cloth pad giveaway!

January's "pick a pad" draw went down so well that I have decided to do the same again. The winner of the giveaway will get to pick any pad from my store.

To enter, simply comment on this blog post and tell me about one thing you do to help take care of our planet (other than use cloth pads, obviously!). At 5pm GMT on Friday 22nd April, I will use the random number generator to pick the winning comment. Don't forget to leave an email address so that I can contact you!

Please leave one comment only - multiple entries will be disqualified. For your comment to be eligible, remember to tell me about one thing you do to help take care of our planet. I'm always looking for new ways to be more eco friendly, so I'm hoping you'll give me lots of ideas! As always, international entries are welcome. Good luck, and have fun!

Embarrassing Bodies - A Missed Opportunity

Much to my partner's despair/disgust, one of my guilty pleasures in life is watching Embarrassing Bodies. I'm quite fascinated with how our bodies work, and love the no-nonsense attitude of doctors Christian, Dawn and Pixie.

Having spent approximately the last seven years advocating reusable menstrual products, imagine my excitement when the preview for this week's episode advertised a segment about periods, and showed a woman holding up a menstrual cup. Hurray! At long last, so-called "alternative" products are appearing in mainstream media!

Well. I saw the programme on 4od yesterday, and what a wasted opportunity. Yes, the segment was informative, but the menstrual cups were introduced as if they were some kind of strange medical device solely for measuring menstrual flow. There was no mention of them actually being effective menstrual protection. What a shame for viewers who are allergic to disposable products, and could have been introduced to a healthier alternative.

I was 22 when I discovered reusables. Disposables had caused me pain and irritation since day one, and I was thrilled to learn there were other options. If I'd missed that one thread on an online forum, I might still be struggling with disposables today, and Luna Wolf might not exist. When the Embarrassing Bodies camera panned across a selection of different menstrual wear, why were there no cloth pads or cups to be seen? Why are reusable menstrual products never suggested to women who come into the clinic with vulval pain?

It shouldn't be a matter of stumbling upon the information when looking for something else. Girls have a right to know about their options as soon as they start menstruating. You can bet that if I'd been introduced to reusables when we had the "period talk" at school, I'd have ended the misery of disposables much younger. The Embarrassing Bodies segment was a great opportunity to educate women on the many different options we have for menstrual protection, and it was a disappointment to see it wasted.

ShelterBox Total

I had a slow week between 12th - 21st March, and only sold 7 pads. Still, that's £7 to ShelterBox, plus an extra £3 I threw in to make it up to £10 (approx $15). It all helps.

In other news, you may have noticed that my stock is a bit thin on the ground at the moment. I've spent the last couple of weeks temping for a local newspaper, which was a lot of fun. Ever the optimist, my plan was to temp in the day and sew in the evening. What actually happened was that I would come home from temping in a haze of tiredness, package orders, and pass out on the sofa all evening.

Anyhow, I figured that now I'm done with temping I can finally catch up on the store, but my body apparently has other plans and is succumbing to another cold. Gah. I tend to stay out of my sewing room when I have a cold in case I infect my fabric, so it'll be at least a few more days until I can re-stock the store. However... when I do start sewing again, I have some lovely new fabrics that I am very excited about! I hope you'll love them as much as I do.

Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami

Like most people I am shocked and saddened by the disaster in Japan, and would like to do something to help. From Saturday 12th March to Monday 21st March, I will be donating £1 to ShelterBox for every pad sold, £3 for every tutorial, and £4 for every Femmecup. At the end of this time period I will post the donation receipt here to show how much was raised.

So, why not treat yourself to something nice and help victims of the earthquake/tsunami at the same time? Every little helps!

Clearance Sale at CPSEU

Cloth Pad Shop Europe is closing at the end of January, therefore my shop there will be disappearing. I'm having a clearance sale to move the last of the stock - everything in my CPS shop is now 15% off, with free shipping anywhere in the world. At the time of posting I have four regular pads and a couple of liners left, most topped with fun flannel prints.



(Don't worry, my main site is not going anywhere.)

Blue Monday Giveaway: Winner!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the giveaway! It was a lot of fun reading the comments. When I've done these things in the past I've just used a list of names, but it's so much nicer to learn a little bit about each person behind the name.

Anyway, without further ado, the winner of the giveaway is... Cristen! Congratulations!

Cristen chose this pad as her prize:


Missed out this time? I will almost certainly be holding more "pick your own pad" giveaways in the future, so keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for details.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Blue Monday Giveaway

It's Blue Monday today, the most depressing day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. I think this means it's time for a giveaway! What better way to counter the January blues than to win a gorgeous free pad?

I posted on the Luna Wolf Facebook page to see which size pad you'd most like to win, and you came up with everything from an XS liner to a post partum pad. In fact, I don't think any two answers were the same! So, I've decided to run this lottery a little differently. The winner will get to choose ANY in-stock pad from either of my stores. You can't say fairer than that!

To enter the giveaway, simply comment on this blog entry and tell me something about your day. It can be anything you like - that cute thing your dog did this morning, the socks you're wearing, what you had for lunch... I'm not picky. ;) At 5pm GMT on Friday 21st January, I will use the random number generator to pick the winning comment. Don't forget to leave an email address so that I can contact you!

Please leave one comment only - multiple entries will be disqualified. For your comment to be eligible, remember to tell me something about your day. As always, international entries are welcome. Have fun!

Happy New Year (atchoo!)

I hope everybody had a great Christmas and New Year, and that your 2011 is far better than your 2010 was - even if your 2010 was awesome!

I had great plans to be super productive this week and sew up a ton of new pads, but my plans have been scuppered by catching a New Year's cold. Did you know that the bubonic plague arrived in England via a delivery of cloth? Yeah. I am staying away from my fabric until I'm better, because nobody wants their cloth pads infected with cold germs.

There are still a few Christmas pads left in the shop, which I have reduced by a further 10% (now 30% off). If you've never tried a Luna Wolf pad before, this is a great chance to do so at a low cost. The last remaining pads Christmas pads will be deleted from the store next week, so grab them while you can!

Thank you to all my customers for your support in 2010 - you are all amazing. Much love to you!