Preparing for the Truckee Shawlette KAL! Lifelines!

In case you missed it last week, we will be starting a second KAL on February 1st and running until March 8th!  Due to popular demand it will be the Truckee Shawlette, our free pattern from December featuring Malabrigo Lace Superwash. We will be operating this KAL in the same manner as the Downton Abbey MKAL, with all of the support and discussion in our Ravelry group.

 Last week, in the Friday Jan. 18th blog, I showed you how to do the increases this pattern calls for, M1R and M1L.

As promised, this week I'll talk about lifelines. What are they and how do they work?

While this project is pretty simple, using lifelines will help you keep from losing any of your M1s should you need to rip back.

What is a lifeline?  A lifeline is a strand of yarn that you insert into your work at a point when you know everything that has been knit before that point, has been done correctly.  It's best to insert it into a plain knit or purl row when possible.  It's also best to use a smooth, slippery lifeline, like mercerized cotton or dental floss but any thing that's not grabby will work.

Once you've completed the row of knitting that you wish to use for your lifeline, thread your lifeline onto a darning needle and begin feeding it through your stitches on your needle.  DO NOT remove the stitches from your knitting needle!  Just run the lifeline through the row of stitches.  If you're using a circular needle, sliding the stitches onto the cord will make room to insert the darning needle.



Another way a lifeline can be inserted if you have interchangeable needles that use a tool to tighten the connection, thread your lifeline through the same little hole used for tightening tool and then just knit normally. Your lifeline will be threaded through the stitches as you knit your row. If you use Addi interchangeables, the Addi SOS cord is now available which has a little slit near the join that you can open up and insert your lifeline into so you can knit it into your knitting the same way.


That's all there is to inserting the lifeline!

When you knit your next row or round be sure to NOT knit the lifeline with your stitch or you will have to cut the lifeline into little pieces to get it out.  Otherwise, removing a lifeline is easy, just pull one of the ends and it should slid right out of your project.  I recommend leaving all of your lifelines in place until you finish your project, just in case.  But if they bother you, they can be removed when you're certain all is well.



 If you have further questions please let me know!  askTerry (at) jimmybeanswool.com (please remove the spaces and replace at with @ to send an email)

Happy Knitting!

 Terry