Friday, June 17, 2011
Lifeline
I have knitted quite a few lace projects in my knitting life, include big shawls like Irish Diamond Shawl and Muir (do click on the links, the shawls are lovely). Luckily, I never messed up too much to use a lifeline. If you are not familiar with it, lifeline is a contrasting thread that you insert in a row, generally below where you want to rip back, so you don't end up dropping massive number of stitches. It's usually used in lace knitting because all the yarn overs and knit togethers make it very hard to pick up the right number of stitches. Some people insert lifeline at regular intervals, I'm much too lazy/dense/ignorant for that.
So guess what I had to do this week? Lifeline threaded through 369 stitches, rip back five rows, pick up 369 stitches (plus or minus a few), add some yarn overs to make the stitch count right, re-insert all the stitch markers. This is an "after" picture, doesn't look too bad, does it? I have only two or three lace rows left, then short row decreases. Easy :-)
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8 comments:
I've never created a project large enough to use a lifeline but I could see myself being the person to insert them frequently...of course, I mess up a lot.
Looking forward to the finished project...
I've gotten to the point I wished I had one but never bothered to make one.
The 2 shawls you linked to are beautiful by the way!
Oh, the knitting lifeline dilemma! I haven't attempted a knitted lace project where I thought lifelines would be appropriate, so I'm not certain if I would use them.
Crocheters, on the other hand, don't use lifelines, they just frog back to the place where they made the mistake. :)
That yarn is lovely ... what is it?
Sorry, forgot to click the 'follow up' button so I have to post again!
Beth, the yarn is Periwinkle Sheep watercolors sock yarn, 75% merino, 25% nylon.
Such pretty yarn. Lifelines are a great idea and if you use Knit Picks circular needles putting in a lifeline is super easy. Just take a length of non-flavored dental floss the length you need to get through your project, thread it through the little hole at the connection of your Knit Picks cable (the right hand needle that you're getting ready to knit the stitches onto) and as you knit across you'll be dragging that lifeline right along through your project without missing a single stitch. Thanks for visiting my blog today. LittleDog says to tell you that he's a HE and not a she and yes, he does take his inspection duties very seriously on every thing that comes into the house, LOL Have a great weekend!
I have employed the use of a lifeline twice.
On one project I didn't need it. However I ripped back to the lifeline 3 times on the other project. It saved me from a complete rip out. I will be picking that project up again (finally) after I finish weaving in the zillion ends on my nightcap.
The shawl links are georgeous!!
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