Spread Sheets

A few years ago, I took an excellent on-line sweater design course taught by the fabulous Clare from Sister Mountain (sistermountain.com)  I highly recommend it as it's quite extensive. My problem with her methods is on my end. Her course is highly technical, utilizing all sorts of spreadsheets. Each class includes a lot of documentation and videos. She has everything down to a science. Unfortunately, I most surely do not have a scientific brain. Her methods give you formulas for all the knitting math as well as sizing. I hate knitting math. 

But I do, in fact, use spreadsheets. Ya know how patterns tell you to knit "until 18 inches or the desired length"? Well, I'm more than a little OCD so if I'm knitting two sleeves or a back and front, they have to not only be the same length but the exact number of rows. So what I do is make a spreadsheet. See the sample I've included. Column one is the first sleeve of my latest design (the one I've been struggling to write!). It includes the number of stitches to cast on, all of the increases and decreases marked on the rows they occur on, and how many stitches there should be after every the increases and decreases. As I finish each row, I change the color of that cell. When I'm ready to knit the other sleeve, I use the next column and change the cells accordingly. 

I know that there are programs and websites, such as Stitch Fiddle, that have row counters, but I'm terrible at moving the marker. I enjoy the colors on the spreadsheet. 

Clare an I have very ifferent methos. Neither is right or wrong. The only right methods for you are the ones you enjoy and the only wrong methods are the ones that get in your way.