Unacceptable Shorts

DD is required to have two sets of PE clothes for school. Of course, the recommended uniform is sold by the school and costs something like $15, but the kids are allowed to bring in an alternate uniform consisting of a plain white t shirt and plain black or plain blue shorts.

Wal Mart has cheap knit stuff; I bought two sets of PE clothes for a TOTAL of about $14, considering that a fair exchange for the time I would otherwise have spent hunting out the fabric and patterns, let alone sewing up two t shirts and two pairs of knit shorts. But there was only one pair of black knit bermudas in DD's size, so the second pair of shorts is what I'd consider gym shorts. There was a white knit binding on them...big deal.

Well, that white knit binding spoils the 'plain black' and so the shorts have been deemed unacceptable by the PE teachers. *AFTER* she'd worn them for about a week and a half. Turns out the other girls complained that if DD got to wear trim on her shorts, they should be able to wear (fill in the blank) on theirs.

Give me a break.

I tried taking the short cut (ha-ha) here and just coloring the binding w/a black Sharpie, but it doesn't really work. Next step is to remove the white binding and replace it with black bias tape. A pain in the pincushion, to be sure, but not too difficult.

I'll need to do it today; I didn't get to take care of it last week because of the full schedule and now she needs to switch her PE clothes out. I wonder how much time I really ended up saving over making her a pair from scratch...