"Charts Made Simple": Live and in person with JC Briar

We had another visiting Kniterrati here in Tucson last week.
JC Briar, author of "Charts Made Simple", came to teach at Kiwi Knitting and at the Old Pueblo Knitter's Guild.

I couldn't attend the Old Pueblo Knitter's Guild meeting (I was in school), but I had signed up to take two of the classes JC Briar was giving at Kiwi:  "Charts Made Simple" and "Slick Set in Sleeves".

I was pretty sure I already had her "Charts Made Simple" book....um, somewhere.
It seems I'd put the book somewhere "safe" so it took me a while to find that clever little book (which was easily found after I actually moved a short stack of books {just looking through the stack 3 or 4 times didn't do the trick}).

I truly enjoyed both classes. She presented the information well and with excellent documentation.

See - I did find my book. And now it's been signed by the Author!

Charts Made Simple Class:
I especially like the way JC Briar does her charting. I like the symbols she uses, that she creates the chart to look like the pattern that will be seen in the knitting, and that she includes lines to show the path of the cables. She showed us that charts don't always start on the right side of the knitting or chart and offered many clues so we could read and understand charts better.

JC Briar demonstrating with her "Jumbotron"
knitting needles/crochet hook/i-cord. 

She had us work off several charts to experience lace, cables, and a diagonal knit/purl stripe of knitting.

Slick Set-in Sleeves Class:
Very cool!
Ok, as you've seen on the blog, I haven't done a lot of sweaters. I have a few in progress, but they don't require set-in sleeves. I have done one. A wee sweater with a hoodie that required me to knit sleeves and then set them into the shoulders of the sweater.
I did the deed, blissfully unaware of how challenging it could be. Or maybe I was just lucky.

For the Slick Set in Sleeve Class, we had homework to create part of the back and front panel of a child's sweater:

In class, JC Briar guided us through

{LOVE the cables on her pullover - pattern is "Molly"}

creating a sleeve cap with short rows:

Spiffy, huh!?!

 

Yes, I had a "helper" taking photos for the blog. 

And it was clever, quite manageable, and I am tickled with the results!
After the "Slick Set-in Sleeves" class with JC Briar, I'm aware that there are multiple types of sleeves and I feel like I have some excellent tools to be able to create Slick Set-in Sleeves in most instances. I'm truly looking forward to taking on a bigger sweater (for Me) with set-in sleeves.

So - last week, I spent a lot of time in school.
Most of it for my Fiber Arts degree and one day with JC Briar.
It was a good week. It all exercised my brain some, but it was a pretty good week!
I have a lot more Fiber Arts classes in my future to achieve my degree.
I'm hoping there will be more classes with JC Briar too.