"Why will I ever in my life need to know the formula for the circumference of a circle!?!" Little-Squirrel asks.
"Well one day," answers Big-Squirrel from the future, "in the distant future, you will want to make yourself a skirt and that darn formula will help you calculate the waist and the diameter of a whole skirt!"
Little-Squirrel just rolled her eyes. "Sure, whatever."
Guess what? I number-crunched my very own half-circle skirt! It was not as complicated as it sounds, though, I did enjoy math as a kid. I will
try to explain without making it too complicated...
I measured my waist (plus 2 inches) for the half-inner circle; only half the circle is my whole waist measurement. And then doubled it to get a whole circle's circumference.
Then using the handy-dandy formula C=2πr, I calculated the radius of the waist and made a small circle with that radius from paper (inner circle in diagram). I folded the small circle in half and decided on the length of the skirt. I measured the length from the edge of the half-circle and drew another larger circle, cut the smaller circle away, and there it was: my very own, made-for-me, pattern.
The waist band was two long rectangles. I attached them to the slightly gathered skirt-waist by sandwiching the skirt between the waist pieces (right sides facing in), stitching, folding them up and hand stitching the top edge (I didn't want any top stitching to show).
I added a lining using the same (but shorter) pattern out of a lightweight white cotton and inserted an invisible zipper. Hand stitching the hem took awhile because of the rounded edge of the skirt, but I enjoyed several Olympic track events and some swimming.
I am really thrilled about this skirt. It's a nice light weight for the summer and it feels just so great.
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