Fool me 493 times, well… you know.
As much as I hate lifelines (they’re such a pain), I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I hate restarting this project even more. Therefore, my project now has a lifeline. The project (at this phase) has a 4-row repeat. I will not be adding a new lifeline every 4 rows. Maybe every 8. Yeah, I think about 8 rows is the number that makes me want to cry when I think of reknitting it.
( For the vast majority of my friends who are not knitters, and for the incredibly small minority of those friends who actually read my knitting entries, I shall briefly explain lifelines. Put simply, knitting projects – particularly lace knitting projects – can be pretty complex. And, knitters are human (all evidence to the contrary aside), and therefore make mistakes. See my previous post on the subject. The scary part of frogging is trying to get your stitches back on your needles correctly, with all the right stitches, all of them facing the right way, without missing any yarnovers, or many other little things that can go wrong. Entire the lifeline. A lifeline is a piece of fiber, generally of a color contrasting from the project you’re working on, which you periodically run through your live stitches. The idea is that, should you later discover an error, you can pull your needles out, and rip your stitches back to your lifeline. Then you can use the lifeline to remount the stitches on your needle. They’re nifty. They’re just a pain in the butt to install. )
I like to use a non-linting, non-stretching line for lifelines. Since most of the lace that I work on is of the large, hole-y variety, and not the “really fine fabric” variety, I did not have any of my standard bright yellow (the chances of my knitting something in that color being vanishingly small) nylon cord in a fine enough gauge to use in stock, so I went to my LYS to procure some. And though they had the right kind of cord in stock, they only had it in one colorway: variegated purple. This would be ok, except the Incredibly Intricate Project™ is being knit in purple. Ah well. There are worse problems in life.
![Ask the [Knitting] Hive Mind: What neck-thing would you knit with this skein?](http://www.covert-ops.org/wp-content/themes/songwriter-premium/images/slide.jpg)
Hey, what brand of nylon cord do you use for lifelines? I generally result to the peasant’s fallback of dental floss, but I suck like that. And also fear lace anyways.
Wednesday: I generally use either Iris, which I’ve only ever seen in hole-in-the-wall local yarn stores, or Melrose, linked below.
Or would be linked below, if my UI hadn’t changed. *sigh* 5 bucks for 275 yards, which is more than I’ll ever use. (Though clearly not as much as I’ll manage to lose, since I’ve purchased 4 or 5 of them.) And eligible for Amazon Prime, which is handy, if you have a subscription.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VRAHAI