• The Big Picture sheds light on why charts are drawn to resemble knitted fabric, and how this governs the way you read charts.
• Staying on track suggests strategies for keeping your place within a chart, and for knitting according to a chart with a minimum of goofs.

Four more chapters dive into greater detail:

• Cable symbol sensibility introduces you to the dazzling realm of cable symbols, and shows how you can unscramble them without always running to a chart’s key for help.
• Charts that show shape explores the idiosyncrasies of charts shaped to match garment pieces, such as shaping implied via chart outlines only, multiple outlines for multiple sizes, and pivot stitches.
• Counting stitches dispels the notion that counting chart squares is the same as counting stitches, pointing out that paying attention to the symbols within the squares is the secret to figuring out how many stitches you ought to have on your needles.
• Repeated stitches draws parallels between the * and [ ] of written instructions and the repeat lines, boxes, or brackets of charted instructions, explaining how to work repeated stitch patterns flat and in the round.

As a bonus, exercises at the end of each chapter give you a chance to strengthen your understanding of the chapter’s main points.