How to Keep Track of Increases and Decreases

“Increase 1 stitch at each end of every 6th row, 8 times.” It reads like one instruction, and it asks for two tallies at once: the plain rows since your last increase, and how many increases you’ve made. Let either one slip, and the sleeve comes out too long, too short or too narrow at the top. This guide shows how to keep track of increases and decreases with three things that check one another: a plan on paper, markers in the fabric, and the number of stitches on your needle.

What a shaping instruction is asking for

Shaping is any change in the number of stitches: increases make a piece wider, and decreases make it narrower. However the pattern words it, a shaping instruction holds four numbers.

• How many stitches change in a shaping row. “At each end” means 2. A raglan with 4 lines of increases, one on each side of every line, gains 8.
• How often. “Every 6th row” puts 5 plain rows between one shaping row and the next.
• How many times. This is the tally that gets lost, because it goes up so slowly.
• What you end with. Most patterns print it after the instruction, as in “(76 stitches)”.

Work that last number out for yourself before you begin. A sleeve of 60 stitches that gains 2 stitches 8 times ends with 76, and 8 increases set 6 rows apart take 48 rows. If your numbers and the pattern’s don’t match, you’ve misread something, and a mistake is cheaper to find on paper than at the armhole.

The shorthand patterns use

• “Every other row”, “every 2nd row” and “every alternate row” all say the same thing: shape, work one row plain, shape again. In flat knitting that usually puts every shaping row on the right side.
• “Every 4th row” is every second right-side row.
• “Every 6th row 8 times, then every 4th row 6 times” is two schedules, one after the other. Finish the first before you begin the second.
• “Work even”, or “work straight”, means no shaping at all: knit on with the stitches you have.
• “Repeat the decrease row” points back to a row the pattern spelled out once. Find it and highlight it, because you’ll be reading it again.

One thing patterns don’t agree on is where the first shaping row falls. “Increase on the next row, then every 6th row” starts straight away. A bare “increase every 6th row” usually means 5 rows first, with the increase on the 6th. Read the lines before and after, decide which row is your first, and write it down.

Three ways to keep track of increases and decreases

Write the shaping rows out before you knit them

The surest way to keep two tallies is to turn them into one. Before you start, list every shaping row by its number, with the stitches you should have once it’s worked. For the sleeve above, with its first increase on row 6:

Increase	Worked on	Stitches after it
1st	row 6	62 stitches
2nd	row 12	64 stitches
3rd	row 18	66 stitches
4th	row 24	68 stitches
5th	row 30	70 stitches
6th	row 36	72 stitches
7th	row 42	74 stitches
8th	row 48	76 stitches

Now there’s a single number to keep, the row, and any counter can hold it. When you’ve finished row 17, a glance at the list shows that row 18 is an increase row. Tick each line as you work it, and the ticks are your second tally.

Mark every shaping row in the fabric

If you’d rather not write a list, let the knitting keep one of the tallies. Each time you work a shaping row, clip a locking stitch marker into one of its stitches, a little way in from the edge.

• The markers are the “how many times”. With 5 markers up the sleeve, 5 increase rows are worked and 3 are still to come.
• The rows above the newest marker are the “how often”. Count them with the marked row as 1. When the row on your needle is number 6, the row after it is a shaping row.

Leave the markers in until the piece is done. The second sleeve can then be laid on the first and matched marker for marker. The guide to stitch markers and lifelines has more about both kinds of marker.

Let a counter hold both numbers

A plain counter holds one number and leaves the other to you. Some knitters use two, a clicker for the rows and another for the repeats. Others turn a barrel counter back to zero after every shaping row and keep the number of times on paper.

A counter with repeats built in holds both at once. In Rowpip, the one we make, that’s the pattern repeat: from the menu you enter the rows in one repeat, how many times you’ll work it, and how many of those rows you’ve already knitted. A line under the count then names the pattern row that comes next and the repeat it belongs to, as in “Next: row 6 of 6 · repeat 2 of 8”. After the last repeat it reads “All 8 repeats done”. For “every 6th row, 8 times” you enter 6 and 8. If the increase is the 6th row of each repeat, “row 6 of 6” in that line tells you the increase row is the one you’re about to knit. There’s a page about counting increases and decreases with a counter like that.

Let the stitch count check you

Rows can be miscounted. Stitches are simply there, on the needle, and every shaping row changes how many there are. Count them after each shaping row, or after every second one, and compare the number with your list.

The stitch count also rebuilds a tally you’ve lost. Take the stitches you have now, subtract the stitches you started with, and divide by what one shaping row adds. With 70 stitches on a sleeve that began with 60 and gains 2 at a time, you’ve worked 5 increase rows. An odd number such as 69 means that one row was increased at one end only.

For decreases, turn the sum round: the stitches you started with, less the stitches you have, divided by what one decrease row removes.

On a wide piece, counting 200 stitches after every shaping row is a chore. Ring markers placed every 20 stitches shorten it, because only the groups at the two ends ever change.

Reading increases and decreases in the fabric

When the list is lost and no marker was ever placed, the shaping rows are still in your knitting. Each kind of shaping leaves its own trace:

• Knit two together (k2tog) leans to the right. Two columns of stitches merge into one, and the left-hand stitch of the pair lies on top.
• Slip, slip, knit (ssk) is the mirror image. It leans to the left, with the right-hand stitch on top.
• Knit front and back (kfb) leaves a small horizontal bar, like a purl bump, at the foot of the new stitch.
• Make one (M1) begins a new column between two old ones, on a stitch that is twisted at its base.
• A yarn over leaves a hole, which makes lace the easiest shaping of all to read.

Find the newest trace and call its row 1. Count up the column from there, as far as the stitch on the needle, and you know the rows since. Then count the traces stacked along the edge or the shaping line, and you know how many times. The guide to reading your knitting in garter and stockinette shows how to follow a single column of stitches upwards.

Shaping in the round

In the round, the shaping points usually have ring markers on the needle, and the stitches between two markers do the counting.

Take the crown of a hat with 96 stitches and a marker after every 12. Each decrease round knits two stitches together before every marker, so it removes 8 stitches, one from each section. Count the stitches of a single section: with 7 left out of 12, you’ve worked 5 decrease rounds. No counter is needed for that tally. Decreasing all the way down to 16 stitches takes 10 decrease rounds.

A raglan yoke worked from the top down is the same thing in reverse. With 4 raglan lines and an increase on each side of each, an increase round adds 8 stitches. A yoke that has grown from 96 stitches to 256 has had 20 increase rounds.

What the stitches can’t tell you is whether the plain round between two shaping rounds is done. For that, count at the marker where the round begins, as described in how to count rounds when knitting in the round.

Two shapings at once

“Decrease at the armhole edge every right-side row 5 times and, at the same time, decrease at the neck edge every 4th row 10 times.” The words “at the same time” announce two schedules that run side by side, and that’s where a single tally breaks down. Write the rows out with a column for each edge. Here is a cardigan front that has 45 stitches when both schedules begin, on row 1:

Row	Armhole edge	Neck edge	Stitches after it
row 1	decrease	decrease	43 stitches
row 3	decrease	plain	42 stitches
row 5	decrease	decrease	40 stitches
row 7	decrease	plain	39 stitches
row 9	decrease	decrease	37 stitches
row 13	plain	decrease	36 stitches

The neck decreases carry on every 4th row up to row 37, and the front ends with 30 stitches: 45, less 5 at the armhole and 10 at the neck. With the grid beside you, your counter holds the row and the grid says what that row needs.

When you’ve lost track anyway

1. Finish the row you’re on, and stop.
2. Count your stitches. The sum above tells you how many shaping rows are behind you.
3. Find the newest shaping row in the fabric and count the rows since, with that row as 1.
4. Compare both numbers with the pattern. If you’re a shaping row short, either rip back to where it belonged, or work it now and make the same change on the matching piece, so that two sleeves still agree.
5. Clip a marker into the last shaping row and write its row number down, so that the next interruption costs you nothing.

Shaping is one part of counting, and it leans on the rest: reading your rows, a running count, and checkpoints in the fabric. The guide to how to count rows in knitting covers all three.