Adding a life line is a great technique when you are working on a complicated lace or colourwork pattern and really useful to give you a little extra confidence when you are trying a new technique for the first time.
A lifeline is a way of protecting the knitting that your have already done and are happy with.
All you need for a life line is a blunt darning needle and a spool of sewing cotton.
In the picture above you can see a life line running across the work between the stocking stitch section and the lace. If I was to drop a stitch now or need to rip back, the life line would stop stitches in the stocking stitch coming out.
In this swatch, I know the lace is correct so far so I am going to add another life line to protect that work.
Thread the darning needle with a long length of sewing cotton and thread it through each stitch on your needle.
If you are working with a lot of stitches, leave the cotton attached to your spool until you have fed it through every stitch to the end.
Be careful to run your thread through each stitch and not the yarn, and avoid threading it through any stitch markers. Secure the thread at each end with a loose back stitch.
Once the life line is secure you can simple continue with your knitting.
If you make a mistake in your pattern – here I started with the wrong row – you can simply remove your knitting needles and rip back to the life line. In other words a place where you are confident your work is correct.
The life line will prevent you going any further than that row.
Then you can simply return your work to your needles and continue.
