The Potato Eaters

Well, the rain continues. Blah. But, we are making the best of it.

Zach trying to make a boat to get away.

We are expecting a shipment of purple peruvian seed potatoes this week. Potatoes take a lot of room in a garden, therefore many people plant them in containers. However, I decided after looking at some gardening cataloges to make the containers! So, I went to WalMart looking for suitable material. And boy, if you are looking for industrial strength polyester, WalMart fabric department is just where to go! I found this material (it isn't fabric) that looks like it is going to work well. It's some sort of woven moderatly plasticized something. It's pretty weird.

So first, we needed to do some geometry as these are going to be round containers. I wanted them 18 inches in diameter. To calculate the sides I pulled out my trusty C=2pi(r) formula (actually I faked it and multiplied by 3 and added some for extra and a seam variance) and got 56 inches. That's how long a piece of this weird grey material I needed for the sides.

Next I made a compass with a pencil and string. Zach helped.

Then I traced a semi-circle on the material (at the fold) and cut. Zach also helped.

And then, deciding that I didn't want to subject my fancy sewing machine and needles to this stuff, I found a yarn darning needle and started stitching. Things were going along swimmingly! Then there was a small snag. You see, my compass was the least accurate of all my instruments. I measured the string, but string stretches apparently. And my resulting diameters were more like 20 1/2 inches instead of 18. Leaving a roughly 9 inch gap in the sides of my first container. Whoops! Note, that 9 inches in diameter is larger than the diameter of the head of my Very Helpful Son. So, I cut another length of fabric the correct height and width and started to sew. However, it was about 5 and both mom and Zach were in meltdown stage, so the finished product will be displayed when it's done!

Happy Spring! And 2 points to whomever can figure out where the title of the post comes from. Answer soon.