I Heart Math?

I am in the throes of recreating my very first crochet pattern and I have discovered that I love math. I have not always loved math. In fact, I have what people would call a math phobia. I hate to blame my junior high school math teachers (all male) but this is where I feel it started. Regardless, I can not let this fear of facts, fractions and factors stop me from my new career. I have to design pattern to go with my great stories about crochet so I have to get over it!

I say "recreating" because I want to make a pattern that I have been looking for for decades. Back in the 80's I made numerous dolls from a pattern I found in a book; I can not recall the title, which makes it impossible to find. My doll looked like a ballerina, perched atop her toes in a lovely little tulle skirt.

She resembled a rudimentary paper doll and was as simple in her design. I have scoured the internet, message boards, and websites to find her, but always come up short. I decided that if I could recreate this pattern from memory I should have no problem writing down any other pattern design I have in my head. As of this morning, I am pleased to report that my little ballerina is three-quarters done! I dutifully wrote down every stitch and I saw the math dance in front of my eyes. I find this especially true working with even numbers.

I am recreating a human form and I want her to be symmetrical. I scaled her to 32-26-30, my previous (hourglass) proportions! The top (32) is larger than the waist (26), and the waist is smaller than the hip (30). To replicate similar proportions in my doll, I did a row of 6 single crochets for the bust, a row of 4 single crochets for the waist, and a row of ___ for the hips. Mathematically, can you fill in the blank? If you could figure that out then you understand (and probably HEART) math like I do now.

Danica McKellar a.k.a "Winnie Cooper", you were right!