so i dont really change armour much so i dont use smithing all that much, it feels the only way to raise it is to just make loads of pointelesss stuff im never gonna use, just to raise skill

You could rp that you like to make jewelry as a hobby.

You could just train with balimund in riften

If by cheating you mean grinding I suppose. It is a skill that require use on a regualr basis. My advice? Collect as much ore, ingots and leather you can when you are out adventuring and when you go to town you use it all, then sell it for profit.

Training and making jewelry are good ways to raise the skill.

I also love to go dwemer diving and collect huge piles of dwemer metal. Then I can make an untold amount of dwemer bows, and RP that it's a hobby or career.

Smithing is a grind, pure and simple. If you only create and improve items you actually intend to use, you'll never raise it very high. You must create a large pile of stuff you end up selling away to get anywhere with it. My approach after the 1.5 patch is pelts to leather and some of that leather to strips, make lots of leather helmets, and also iron ore transmuted to gold, make lots of gold jewelry. When I reach a level I want, like 60 for arcane smithing, I stop the grind for a while.

yeah i mean its not really cheating, but its just feels cheap, ya know, my mate, says to role play and pretend you do it as a job too lol, but also another thing its absolutly pointless selling stuff in this game cuz money is worthless, i dont buy stuff from shops cuz ill find all of it anyways, the only reason to sell stuff is to get my skill up in speech isnt it? money was pointless from the begining pretty much

You don't even have to role play. You can do it as a job. Make gear, sell gear.
I downloaded a mod that puts smithing equipment in Proudspire manor, so that I can actually do my smithing at home. That is, once I've made enough money to buy proudspire manor, lol.
...Which I do by smithing and selling!

yeah i think thats the only way of looking at it really, and ill do what you do, get it to level 60, where as now its at 41, and stop for a bit

does transmute rise alteration at all?? it does just very slowly

Yes, Transmute raises Alteration.

Yes. But not that much.

so i just got my smithing to level 60, and it was BORING, i really dont like that at all, i mean yeah you can pretend its your job and stuff but when it comes down to it, its a chore, lol, i suppose from now on ill just do it bit by bit, its just i had to get it to at least 60, sick of not being able to improve magic stuff, shame you cant improve the deadric artifacts though

Just smith as you go. I got to 100 with my battlemage just by creating and wearing each armour type in sequence. Having armoured followers helps too.

well thats what i was doing, i got to 41 and was at ebony armour, maybe ill decide to carry on now im at ebony armour

I craft items to sell, but then I have a lot more use for money than most folks because I increased the number of training sessions allowed per level as well as the cost. I also buy filled Grand Soul Gems for use in leveling Enchanting, which eats up a lot of my profits until it's completed.

That said, I still end up with too much money in the long run, because expenditures are finite while money is not. There are ways to solve that problem, but they always generate a ton of (sometimes justified) hate so are seldom used.

I improve all the junk I collect during quests and then sell it. If you do that all the time, it won't take too long.

This
My characters make gear for themselves and any followers I use and I don't find grinding or training neccessary for smithing (unlike alchemy and enchanting)

I think it's worth mentioning that you can take some of the grind out of Smithing post-patch by making large expensive items like chest armors. You'll get a much larger gain, much like Alchemy has been since release. Make expensive things and you get a larger skill-up gain