starting on the next knitting project, a pattern i drooled over for many months before deciding to go for it: celtic dreams by beth brown-reinsel. One of the first things i had to do in this pattern was pick up 28 stitches along 5-inch knitted shoulder saddles. For some reason, i was having a lot of problems with this, ending up with too many stitches or not enough. After some swearing and growling, i finally used my head and divided the 5 inches into four as follows.
fold in half, mark, then fold each half and mark as well:

measure to make sure the pins are at the quarter points (you could just do this from the get-go and forget the folding stuff, but i liked the picture)

bite-sized portions

hope that helps anyone who hadn’t already thought of that.