Lifeline in Knitting

The other day when I shared about having to start over with my Hitofude, someone asked why I wasn’t using a lifeline.

First, for non-knitters, or new knitters, let me explain what about a lifeline. It’s simply lacing another piece of yarn through your knitting at certain rows as a place marker, of sorts. It’s so that if you have to rip back, or there’s an accidental rip back (like a dog has too much fun while you’re away) when you get to that place maker, your ripping will go no farther and you can pick up the stitches.

Can you see the tan thread about midway through the piece (not the bottom greenish/brown yarn)?  That’s my lifeline.

On this particular piece, I have to do 14 repeats so I’m putting a lifeline after every 3 repeats (or every 24 rows). Just as important as adding a lifeline is knowing on which rows the lines were placed. Since I use Knit Companion software, I make myself notes.

You can see the yellow sticky note there where my instructions are.

These are my notes to remind me where the lifelines are placed. This was early on. I have now added that the 1st one is tan and the 2nd one is raspberry colored.

As far as inserting the lifelines, the extra yarn can be carried along with the knitting yarn . . however you can make that happen. I’ve been known to tape it to the knitting needle and drag it through. You could also thread a tapestry needle and thread it through the stitches on the needles.

Several of the interchangeable needle sets either have holes or other ways of threading an extra piece of yarn specifically for inserting lifelines.  I’m using the Addi Clicks and they have a split in the cable.

It’s hard to see it but I simply thread a darning or tapestry needle with the yarn I’ll be using for the lifeline, then poke the needle through the split in the cable.

As I’m knitting along, the extra yarn is being “dragged” through the knitted stitches.

Sorry for the blurry pictures. Trying to hold the camera with one hand! One thing is that the stitch markers need to be removed and replaced on the next row, or use the locking type stitch markers that can be removed because the lifeline goes through the markers and they can’t be switched to the next row.

Now . . why I didn’t have lifelines in the first attempt at Hitofude . . I did but, if you notice in this picture . .

. . there are live stitches at the bottom. One side is with orange yarn and the other side is with a camo colored yarn.

First, I had a mistake in the main part of the sleeve. It was back in the first set of 3 repeats and I was on the 4th set of repeats when I noticed it. It wasn’t *that* noticeable. I always say that at first and then it gets to me later but at that point, I could have. I could have had to go back 50 or more rows and, at that point, I said no . . even with the lifelines, I wasn’t ripping back that far.

Then, once all 14 repeats were done, the crochet part of the live stitches was removed and those stitches were bound off, together with the top part of the sleeve. So, had I ripped back past that, I would have basically lost it all anyway so . . I just started over. Lesson learned . . I hope!