Shorts to dye for!!!

Big weekend this weekend in the girls' rugby calendar.


It's the National Regional Festival at Lichfield RFC in Staffordshire

The U15s play on Saturday and Sarah's age group the U18s play on Sunday

From our club Sarah will be the only girl there in either age group and the squad for her region of SouthWestSouth is drawn from the counties of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall - the West Country, the bottom left hand corner of England

Squads of 22 girls from each of I think 11 or 12 regions will battle it out in pool games and then knock-out games throughout the day to decide which region will become national champions this year. To be honest the squad isn't looking that strong (with the exception of my daughter of course - biased mother talking here) so we don't expect to get placed but it will be a great day and it is a real achievement to make the squad in the first place

Sarah was a member of the squad four seasons ago at the lower age group who were the inaugural champions when the competition first started so she has previous experience.

As you can imagine we're all going up there to support her

Sadly for the two younger ones they're missing a scout camp this weekend because of it but sometimes something just has to give - we can't be in two places at the same time and there will be lots of other scout camps

One of Sarah's coaches is a youngish teacher from Somerset who has a very sweet behind, especially in rugby shorts (sorry if this is making you blush, but one can always look). He often wears a pair of particularly noticeable bright yellow shorts which show his assets to their full advantage and the whole squad of 15 to 18 year olds delight in teasing him about it - not to mention the mothers :o) I think he loves the banter in an embarrassing sort of way

So when we spied a couple of pairs of white rugby shorts in the sale a few weeks ago we thought what fun it would be to dye them for Sarah to wear them all in the interests of winding him up of course!

Hence the bright YELLOW! and PINK! specimens you see before you

Of course I couldn't possibly allow just one little pair of shorts to venture unaccompanied into the washing machine - I'm not that cruel

So here's the rest of the yellow dye lot - the interesting brown/toffee colour on the left was originally part of a lilac cotton charity shop sheet - not quite so attractive is its mottled cousin on the right mixing the brown with the purple - I think that may be a candidate for the next black session

And here's the rest of the pink dye lot - it's always fun to overdye other fabrics - but I can't believe I'm showing you this lot mostly un-ironed - what a scruffy individual I am. My excuse is that Nigel's need was greater than mine last night as he'd run out of work shirts - oh dear, the obstacles that stand in the way of my art!

Mind you I have been a little bit busy on the stitching front

I did a big post office visit yesterday to send off another Lucy Locket Mini Quilt, two heart quilts for blogging friends who need a lift, another heart quilt I promised in exchange for fabric and of course the replacement Spring Fling Round Robin - pleeeease Mr Postman can you make extra sure that this version gets to its rightful recipient - I really don't fancy making another one!

I was also very taken with a little mini quilt that Lucy in the Netherlands had made for Libby

So much so I had a bit of a go myself

My little red squares are half an inch so I don't think it's quite as teeny tiny as Lucy's version, plus I got bored after 12 little nine patch blocks so it's only 3 x 4 instead of 4 x 5, but I'm very taken with it and it joins the churn dash in the 'waiting for sandwiching' pile along with several heart quilts.

Some of the next heart quilts don't actually have homes to go to and a few people have suggested opening an etsy shop to sell them - the jury's still out on that one