Evenly Spaced Increase/Decrease Calculator

Why the spacing usually isn't perfectly even

Splitting a stitch count into equal segments only comes out clean when it divides evenly — 120 stitches into 8 evenly-spaced increases gives a tidy 15 stitches per segment, but 118 stitches into 8 increases doesn't divide evenly at all. When that happens, this calculator spreads the "extra" stitch across as many segments as needed rather than piling it all into one long segment at the end, the same even-distribution approach used throughout this site for spacing shaping across rows. The result is a repeat with two segment lengths instead of one (say, five segments of 15 and three of 14) rather than one segment noticeably longer than the rest.

Why the stitch count math depends on your technique

A lifted increase (M1) is worked in the gap between two existing stitches and doesn't use up a stitch of its own, so every original stitch in the row still needs to be accounted for in the plain-stitch segments. A worked-into increase (KFB, or 2 stitches into the same stitch in crochet) uses up one existing stitch to produce two, so that stitch comes out of your total rather than sitting alongside it. Decreases always consume 2 stitches to produce 1, regardless of whether you're working k2tog/ssk or a crochet 2-together decrease. Picking the wrong option here throws off the segment lengths even though the number of increases or decreases stays the same.

Flat rows vs. rounds

The underlying math is identical either way — this only changes how you read the result. Worked in the round, treat the repeat as cycling continuously back to your marker. Worked flat, the last segment simply runs to the end of the row; if you want the two edges of a flat piece to look more visually symmetric, working half of the first segment's stitches before the very first increase or decrease (and folding the rest into the final segment) is a common refinement many knitters do by eye once they have this base repeat to start from.