"...while at the same time..."
Most sweater patterns involve a lot of shaping of each piece to achieve the most flattering fit (as most of us are not square cubes, hopefully). To shape a piece, you have to get rid of or add on stitches to a row to make it curve in or jut out etc. to form a v-neck, shape an underarm or taper down a sleeve.
(Bored yet? Hang on.)
So, one side of a sweater (say the left side of a cardigan front) has to accommodate waist shaping, an underarm and sleeve hole; while the other side of that piece has to make a rounded neck and maybe a flared waist. In order to do this on one piece, you have to be shaping the beginning of each row WHILE AT THE SAME TIME shaping the other end. And rarely symmetrically. Not to mention that if there's a pattern in the sweater, say, cabling,
there are three different things going on in every row that don't repeat regularly. Like rubbing your stomach and patting your head with pointy sticks and string. And whistling "Ode to Joy."
So the instructions may say, "decrease two stitches every fifth row six times then one stitch every third row five times while at the same time increase [at the other end] every seven rows four times, then every six rows three times, then increase two stitches the next four rows," etc. And do all this while watching "Law and Order," letting the dog and cats in and out and putting Henry to bed.
This either involves several stitch counters, pencil and paper notations, counting and re-counting, swearing and ripping out repeatedly; or you can take on the initially laborious task of writing out every row by hand and following each one. (A few patterns do this for you, but most don't.) For me it's worth the three hours designing an excel chart at the beginning of the project for the sake of my sanity and the finished object.
Anyway, that's how I spent my morning. Good thing it's cool and rainy out or I'd never get going on this thing.
Here's someone else's diagram of the sweater I'm starting, from another Ravelry knitter, MoniqueQc. Her blog post is very helpful if you speak French. As she puts it: "Bon, une photo vaut mille mots qui, je l'espère, vous enlèvera mille
maux. ;-)"

Oh, I'm sorry, you don't speak French? Quel dommage.
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