Perfection is a goal to which one can always aspire. We could probably debate the merits of perfection; is anything less acceptable, or when and why perfection should be our objective. Mistakes are inevitable. The real question: what we do once we’ve made the mistakes?
Help is always around us if we ask. And that’s why I’ve always been happy to share lifelines for your knitted work. Perhaps I just hang around people who hold a high bar for themselves. They aim for perfection and making mistakes is not just inefficient, but frustrating. And in knitting, ripping back just opens a world of possibilities for more mistakes. But adding a knitted lifeline makes it easy to rip back before the mistake.
I trawled through all of the videos on YouTube for the best description of how to create a lifeline in your knitting, and Staci from VeryPink wins my vote.
In complex knitting patterns, it wouldn’t hurt to add them as you go. Why wait for a mistake? You can build the protection along the way and it can also serve as a row counter. Raise the lifeline every four or six rows, depending on the pattern repeat.
