A lifeline in the lace

A lifeline in my lace.

This is an example of a lifeline in my knitted lace project-in-progress. What is a lifeline? It's a piece of yarn that is strung through the stitches (on your needles) of one of the "stabilizing rows"—a row of all purl or all knit stitches that give you a base for a lace row. It's usually done after a set of rows. Don't forget to bypass your stitch markers when stringing the lifeline.

Why do knitters take the time to do this? Because if there's an error, it helps to have your stitches on what is essentially a stitch holder so you can have a place to rip back to. I decided I could live with having to rip back 2 sets of rows (20 rows total) on this shawl, but I'm about to do another lifeline on the row that's on the needles.

When you get to about 400 stitches on your needles, trust me, you want a lifeline!


Aiee! I crocheted something! Closeup of a tassel.

I like Baroque crochet cotton for my lifelines when using fine laceweight yarn. And I actually think lifelines are what crochet cotton was made for! Well, I did crochet that beaded tassel out of the Baroque cotton. I am not a crocheter; it was hard. Even harder was the fact that it was from an early 1900's pattern so I had my husband decode the pattern for me (he's the crocheter in the family).