Could you toss me a lifeline?

My lovely assistant, Nelea, is helping to display another new (to me) concept: The lifeline.

This is another great idea I learned about at my first meeting of knitters. It works kind of like a Windows Restore Point. You insert a contrasting thread or yarn underneath the stitches you have on the needle at a known good point. In this example, I have one left in there in the row where I stopped increasing and began decreasing stitches. It runs through 53 stitches. Because I lack any confidence whatsoever, I left it in there until I safely inserted the second lifeline at the point where I now have only a nice round 40 stitches left on the needle. Once I had that one sewn in, I removed the old one. It's just running through the work, and it can be removed by simply pulling it from one end.

After the lifeline is inserted, it gets worked into the fabric as you knit the subsequent rows. You don't pick up the lifeline, just the actual yarn you are using in the project. It's pretty neat to watch how it moves around.

I get so frustrated when I make a mistake I can't fix. I posted a photo of this, my second dish cloth, when I had about 25 rows knitted. I started a different project, and when I went back to this one, I forgot that I was supposed to be adding stitches and just kept knitting away until I had a few more rows. When I realized my mistake, I just ripped everything out and started over. The second go-'round I put lifelines in at points so I would not be required to rip out more than 20 rows, if any. That amount is bearable. Fortunately, 40 rows from completion, I haven't yet needed to resort to using them. On my last project, as I was binding off the final three stitches, the right needle just slipped out of everything and fell on the floor. I was able to work it back in where it belonged, but if I was dealing with a greater number of stitches, or if any had been unraveled into the work, I'd have been screwed.

If I have to resort to this lifeline, all I will need to do is rip out the rows knitted after it was inserted. The thread will stop the unraveling, and I will just need to re-insert the left needle into the loops that have been preserved by the lifeline. Project saved, very few tears, happy knitter.

When I started looking up how the real knitters use this technique, most of the references were to lace-making. Apparently, the pros don't bother with such things on simple projects like the ones I do. I personally believe I will continue to use them in every project from now on.

PRACTICE SAFE KNITTING!