Spent the weekend knitting 10 rows and then frogging 10 rows. Does anyone put their lifelines every 5 rows or so or maybe every other row, or is that totally insane? No one told me how %^$* hard it is to fix lace.
agree with nonnahs - use as many lifelines as make you feel safe.The idea below of using floss as a lifeline is a good one to remember. Much thinner than working with waste yarn.
I also think that working on lace only when you can concentrate is essential. Post it's are good to have on hand so you can jot down stopping points if you end mid-row.
Some ideas from someone who just did their first lace project (Swallowtail) soon to start on Icarus. Using Denise needles (found metal too slick and woods too sticky), you can attach a lifeline through the little hole in the base of the needle point and just pull it through while you are knitting. I also just pulled it through my center marker, which I would recuperate a few rows later when I removed that thread. Since it was easy, I basically did a lifeline every pearl row. Using a tightly spun embroidery yarn, I employed a different color for every second row of the repeat, which meant that if I had to frog back, I knew exactly where I was. Most errors will be an extra yarn over, or a mistaken decrease, always check those first when the count goes off. They are pretty easily correctable from two rows up, even just working around a lifeline. Should you need to remove the lifeline, just cut it at the point you need, so it will remain for the rest of the row, just in case. Hope this helps.
And don't forget to look and your knitting a lot! I know this can get painful when you've knit and re-knit so many times, but taking the time to study that pattern and understand what it looks like when it's right, where it's going, and where the major stopping and starting points are is worth, I think, a hundred lifelines. Many problems can be fixed when you get to that stitch on the next row, if you know what you're looking for. Anything that saves me from having to knit the same thing over again is worth working toward!
Though that's a very good idea about threading a lifeline through a Denise needle. I'm totally going to do that next time.
4 comments:
agree with nonnahs - use as many lifelines as make you feel safe.The idea below of using floss as a lifeline is a good one to remember. Much thinner than working with waste yarn.
I also think that working on lace only when you can concentrate is essential. Post it's are good to have on hand so you can jot down stopping points if you end mid-row.
Remember - we're here for you.
Some ideas from someone who just did their first lace project (Swallowtail) soon to start on Icarus. Using Denise needles (found metal too slick and woods too sticky), you can attach a lifeline through the little hole in the base of the needle point and just pull it through while you are knitting. I also just pulled it through my center marker, which I would recuperate a few rows later when I removed that thread. Since it was easy, I basically did a lifeline every pearl row. Using a tightly spun embroidery yarn, I employed a different color for every second row of the repeat, which meant that if I had to frog back, I knew exactly where I was. Most errors will be an extra yarn over, or a mistaken decrease, always check those first when the count goes off. They are pretty easily correctable from two rows up, even just working around a lifeline. Should you need to remove the lifeline, just cut it at the point you need, so it will remain for the rest of the row, just in case. Hope this helps.
And don't forget to look and your knitting a lot! I know this can get painful when you've knit and re-knit so many times, but taking the time to study that pattern and understand what it looks like when it's right, where it's going, and where the major stopping and starting points are is worth, I think, a hundred lifelines. Many problems can be fixed when you get to that stitch on the next row, if you know what you're looking for. Anything that saves me from having to knit the same thing over again is worth working toward!
Though that's a very good idea about threading a lifeline through a Denise needle. I'm totally going to do that next time.
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