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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
the book was well written, but i still found that i got lost in it, because it is aimed more for the usa market. Not for the novice knitter.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
24 reviews
221 of 223 people found the following review helpful
GPS for the knitter's brain
2 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback
I teach over a thousand knitters a year, most of them very advanced. Yet in my workshops I hear again and again, "Where am I? Help!" These otherwise excellent knitters can't tell if they are on an increase round, if their lace is lined up, or why a pattern repeat suddenly spans a needle intersection when it didn't before. I do teach my students several preventive strategies for bouts of knitting blindness, but I have never had anything like JC Briar's new book to offer. I plan to carry her book from now on and wave it at my knitters, for it is the cure for their confusion, a sort of knitter's GPS they can install in their brains for clearer vision.
You might wonder if a book on knitting charts would be dull and put you to sleep. Quite the opposite. JC has designed her book like a series of tasty snacks served 1-2 pages at a time. All those light bulbs going on in her well-lit cafe will keep you happy and eager for more. If you dine your way through the whole menu, you will earn the ability to see your knitting as a chart and your charts as knitting, and feel as if you are knitting with enhanced reading glasses.
The "menu" includes this and much more:
--Matching knitting to chart and chart to knitting, including tricky situations
--Tricks for tracking lines of knitting
--Identifying and repairing mistakes using the chart as a map
--Organizing and working cable strands and crossings (these illustrations are particularly eye-opening)
--Understanding charts that show shape
--Pirouetting on pivot stitches (one of my favorite sections!)
--Changeable stitch counts and how to account for them
--Repeats with shifty behavior
--And for dessert: Engaging exercises, with answers and explanations in the appendix, to help you check your understanding.
I consider JC a sort of topological genius. I once sent her my most fiendishly difficult swatch, and she had it charted out correctly in 5 minutes, while most knitters flounder for hours trying to decipher it. JC would make a great spy or code-breaker, but lucky for us, we have her as a knitter, one whose uncommonly clear thinking is available in this, her first, and I trust not her last, book.
You might wonder if a book on knitting charts would be dull and put you to sleep. Quite the opposite. JC has designed her book like a series of tasty snacks served 1-2 pages at a time. All those light bulbs going on in her well-lit cafe will keep you happy and eager for more. If you dine your way through the whole menu, you will earn the ability to see your knitting as a chart and your charts as knitting, and feel as if you are knitting with enhanced reading glasses.
The "menu" includes this and much more:
--Matching knitting to chart and chart to knitting, including tricky situations
--Tricks for tracking lines of knitting
--Identifying and repairing mistakes using the chart as a map
--Organizing and working cable strands and crossings (these illustrations are particularly eye-opening)
--Understanding charts that show shape
--Pirouetting on pivot stitches (one of my favorite sections!)
--Changeable stitch counts and how to account for them
--Repeats with shifty behavior
--And for dessert: Engaging exercises, with answers and explanations in the appendix, to help you check your understanding.
I consider JC a sort of topological genius. I once sent her my most fiendishly difficult swatch, and she had it charted out correctly in 5 minutes, while most knitters flounder for hours trying to decipher it. JC would make a great spy or code-breaker, but lucky for us, we have her as a knitter, one whose uncommonly clear thinking is available in this, her first, and I trust not her last, book.
102 of 105 people found the following review helpful
A Chart Book Whose Time Has Come
3 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback
I have in my hands a treasure: an advance copy of JC Briar's new book, "Charts Made Simple: understanding knitting charts visually."
I didn't know it, but I have been waiting for this book for a very long time.
Every time I have ever taught lace, which is a frequent occurrence, I have wished for some sort of reference to offer my students who are unfamiliar with charts. Since I ask my students to become very intimate with their lace work, even beyond "reading," it is essential that they wean themselves off of long strings of word descriptions and onto pictorial charts.
This is a tortuous process for many knitters, and there are various learning styles to consider as well.. some of us are aural learners, some of us visual, and some spatial.
JC's book appeals wonderfully to almost every style of learner and feels so good in the hand. A small, beautifully organized compendium of common sense and wise knitterly advice, it also ventures into previously uncharted territory as it exhorts us to go beyond the obvious, not even taking a chart at face value. Each chapter ends with a summary and a set of test questions, making it an ideal self guided learning experience.
As most designers who have had the great fortune to have worked with JC in her previous career as a tech editor par excellence, JC knows just about everything there is to know about knitting, and there has never been a tech editor with a sharper eye or a friendlier tone. "Charts Made Simple" is a wonderful opportunity to glean chart pointers from a master.
I didn't know it, but I have been waiting for this book for a very long time.
Every time I have ever taught lace, which is a frequent occurrence, I have wished for some sort of reference to offer my students who are unfamiliar with charts. Since I ask my students to become very intimate with their lace work, even beyond "reading," it is essential that they wean themselves off of long strings of word descriptions and onto pictorial charts.
This is a tortuous process for many knitters, and there are various learning styles to consider as well.. some of us are aural learners, some of us visual, and some spatial.
JC's book appeals wonderfully to almost every style of learner and feels so good in the hand. A small, beautifully organized compendium of common sense and wise knitterly advice, it also ventures into previously uncharted territory as it exhorts us to go beyond the obvious, not even taking a chart at face value. Each chapter ends with a summary and a set of test questions, making it an ideal self guided learning experience.
As most designers who have had the great fortune to have worked with JC in her previous career as a tech editor par excellence, JC knows just about everything there is to know about knitting, and there has never been a tech editor with a sharper eye or a friendlier tone. "Charts Made Simple" is a wonderful opportunity to glean chart pointers from a master.
56 of 56 people found the following review helpful
An Absolute Must-Have Book for Every Knitter
16 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am so happy to see this book in print. It is about time that a book on making chart reading simpler became available to knitters. I've struggle with chart reading for years and have avoided patterns that utilize charts like the plague. This book helps me understand charts and how to read them. That is a huge accomplishment in itself.
The first chapter is called 'The Big Picture' and it illustrates how charts show you the big picture and how symbols look like stitches. It emphasizes that charts read in the same direction you knit. This is of absolute importance. Charts also show the right side of the fabric, never the wrong side. Blank squares or spaces keep clutter to a minimum and since there are always exceptions, special charts come with special instructions. There are ways to tweak charts to your liking. One way is to use a highlighter to make some symbols 'pop' off the page. You can customize symbols to your liking and you can use "highlighters that mimic the yarn colors you plan to use, bringing the colorwork pattern into view." You can also redraw the chart with colored pencils.
The second chapter is called 'Staying on Track' and it focuses on the following:
Notice How the Design Elements Line Up - Look the chart over and get an idea of the types of stitches used, where they are and how they line up in relation to one another.
"Cover the rows you have not yet knit". This is an absolute must.
Keep Track of Each Chart Separately. Since some patterns utilize more that one chart, don't get them confused.
Compare Your Knitting to the Chart. Do this frequently to see whether you're on track or whether you've goofed.
Teach Yourself to Read Your Knitting. Learn what each stitch looks like and what stitch you've just knit.
Get Back on Track. If you lose your place, use your chart to help you find your way back.
There are chapters on Cable Symbol Sensitivity, Charts that Show Shape, Counting Stitches, and Repeated Stitches. There are exercises to practice with and there are keys to charts and a list of abbreviations.
This is a must have book. It is an ABSOLUTE RESOURCE that should be in every knitter's library and it is clear, clear, clear. I commend J.C. Briar for this book and thank her for publishing it. I know that it will get a lot of use from me.
Bonnie Brody
2/16/11
The first chapter is called 'The Big Picture' and it illustrates how charts show you the big picture and how symbols look like stitches. It emphasizes that charts read in the same direction you knit. This is of absolute importance. Charts also show the right side of the fabric, never the wrong side. Blank squares or spaces keep clutter to a minimum and since there are always exceptions, special charts come with special instructions. There are ways to tweak charts to your liking. One way is to use a highlighter to make some symbols 'pop' off the page. You can customize symbols to your liking and you can use "highlighters that mimic the yarn colors you plan to use, bringing the colorwork pattern into view." You can also redraw the chart with colored pencils.
The second chapter is called 'Staying on Track' and it focuses on the following:
Notice How the Design Elements Line Up - Look the chart over and get an idea of the types of stitches used, where they are and how they line up in relation to one another.
"Cover the rows you have not yet knit". This is an absolute must.
Keep Track of Each Chart Separately. Since some patterns utilize more that one chart, don't get them confused.
Compare Your Knitting to the Chart. Do this frequently to see whether you're on track or whether you've goofed.
Teach Yourself to Read Your Knitting. Learn what each stitch looks like and what stitch you've just knit.
Get Back on Track. If you lose your place, use your chart to help you find your way back.
There are chapters on Cable Symbol Sensitivity, Charts that Show Shape, Counting Stitches, and Repeated Stitches. There are exercises to practice with and there are keys to charts and a list of abbreviations.
This is a must have book. It is an ABSOLUTE RESOURCE that should be in every knitter's library and it is clear, clear, clear. I commend J.C. Briar for this book and thank her for publishing it. I know that it will get a lot of use from me.
Bonnie Brody
2/16/11
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