Astute readers of last Tuesday’s post might have noticed a thin green line running through my WIP:
That’s a lifeline, a bit of waste yarn run through every stitch on a single row. If I make a disastrous goof, I can unravel back to that row, slip the stitches from the waste yarn back to my needles, and start over. It’s the knitterly equivalent of hitting the “Save” button every 5 minutes when typing in a long document: if something goes wrong, you’ve only lost at most 5 minutes’ work.
I don’t often use lifelines. Part of it is laziness – who wants to bother installing lifelines? Who wants to interrupt their knitting fun for that kind of tedium? And part of it is hubris – hey, I know how to fix mistakes without ripping back, right? And even if I did need to rip back, I know I could do it, even without a lifeline – I might not like it, but I could do it.
But for this project... well, so far I’ve opted for the added peace of mind that lifelines offer. Each time I complete a 32-row repeat, I check my stitches, then I pull out the old lifeline and re-insert it through all the stitches of the current row. On the next row, I ignore the lifeline as best as possible.
Why? A bit of nupp paranoia, I think. Don’t get me wrong: as I said before, unlike some knitters I don’t mind working nupps. But early on in this project, on a couple nupps I missed a loop or two when working p5tog. It wasn’t until a row or two later that I noticed the loose loop of yarn dangling in the breeze. Given the way nupps are constructed, nothing would’ve unraveled – it wasn’t like I’d dropped a stitch – but that excess yarn would’ve eventually wiggled its way around, creating an unattractive looseness in the nupp and its surrounding stitches. So I dropped back the offending stitches and reknit them – a somewhat fiddly affair, as you can imagine.
Hence the lifeline. With more nupping practice under my belt, and close attention to my p5togs, I haven’t had any dangling loops for a while... but I’m not taking my chances. If I discover a malformed nupp several rows down, I want the option of ripping back to a lifeline. It all boils down to choosing your poison: the tedium of installing lifelines, or the fiddliness of repairing nupps?
Thanks for the pics and explanation - I've been wondering how lifelines work. You made it very clear!
» JudyG
I recognize that project. How much farther have you gotten? Have you been keeping up with your MDR? I have, have good hope of getting my scarf done before Wed OR time.
» Dkwohlerpt
Thanks, Judy. You’re quite welcome. :-)
Dolores, I’ve completed seven and a half repeats of the pattern. I haven’t yet figured out exactly how many I’ll need to get a shawl of decent length, but I’m guessing I’ll need around 20... so I have a ways to go yet. :-( On the bright side, at least it’s finally longer than it is wide.
» JC
PS: Dolores, best of luck completing the scarf. And in the OR too, of course!
» JC