In which I mostly talk in math

I felt like knitting some elaborate lace two weeks or so ago and have always loved the Peri's Parasol pattern from the second(?) Barbara Walker treasury — the red one. I like the way it naturally scallops at the bottom and just looks, in general, fancy. Since shaping within complicated lace patterning wasn't something I had a particular hankering for and I didn't really want to knit a scarf and I've been thinking ahead to what I'll be wearing this summer AND I had a bag full of Cotton Classic that hasn't worked for any sweater project I've tried it for, I decided on a skirt.

Technicalish knit-babble: I took my hip measurement, added a few inches for ease, multiplied that number (42) times my gauge (5 stitches = 1") and got an initial number: 210. The lace pattern had a repeat of 22 stitches +1, so I scaled up and cast on 221. Normally, I would have worked in the round since I was making a tube, but this pattern is, um, patterned on both sides, which is a lot harder to translate from working flat and, frankly, I didn't want to do the work. So I cast my 221 stitches onto a #8 needle, which was a size larger than I knew I was going to use for the solid part of the skirt. The larger needle will make the lower portion fuller enough to give the piece some shape, again, without me doing any further calculation or interrupting the pattern. After five repeats, which is enough to bring the lace part of what I'm intending to be a knee-length skirt up to about mid-thigh, I switched to 10x1 rib, #7 needles, and working in the round, knitting two together at the join on the first round. I knit 2" even after changing patterns.

Then I starting decreasing for the waist. I have about a 12" difference between my hips and waist, but decided to reduce by 11" so it would sit slightly below my natural waist. I was looking to get rid of 55 sts, but made it 54 so that it would be divisible by the four decrease points of the darts, so nine decrease rounds. Since I had about 8" of skirt that I wanted to happen while I was decreasing and my row gauge was 7 rows to the inch (so 56 rows total), the math worked out to decrease every 4 rows. Once I finish all of that, I'll knit a casing at the top and insert elastic.