Lifeline woes!

[afuna]

I love the idea of lifelines, and I've used them before in projects with a thicker weight. This time though, I'm making a very lacy shawl in laceweight yarn, used a lifeline of dental floss, and I'm running into problems.

Yesterday, I found a dropped stitch that had fallen some five rows back. While debugging that, I found another error in the repeat just above my lifeline. So much relief! I ripped back fifteen rows to my lifeline, and then realized that the dental floss wasn't holding the shape of the loops well enough.

It's not an issue with the lifeline having been picked up along with the stitch; the lifeline was sliding back and forth in a straight line before! It's more like the loop of the stitch has been pulled out of the stitch below, though they're still being held together by the lifeline. The lifeline ends up being twisted around one of the strands, and then becomes untwisted if I pick up both stitches and make the knit/purl for that row.

I'm three stitches in, and it feels like it would be a lot more pleasant to frog everything and just restart, but I want to make sure I don't run into the same thing with lifelines in the future.

Is it possible to use a stiffer material for a lifeline? Say an interchangeable circular cord, or maybe some wire?

Comments

[aedifica]

Oooh! That solves a problem for me, thanks! I tried to put a lifeline in my current project, but I kept accidentally sewing it *into* the yarn, which doesn't work so well. That key hole, though... that would fix it!

[tephra]

The key hole trick is so much easier. I generally just leave a 10-12" tail pulled through and knit normally, but for very long rows (500+ stitches) or grabby yarn (or both) I recommend tying the life line to the needle. I didn't once and picking up the lifeline and feeding it through the 100 or so stitches needed to catch up with my needle and tie it on was a pain.

[afuna]

I love the keyhole trick :D It's MAGIC.