What is a Lifeline?

On November 19th, 1999 I was sitting at home with my family watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The game show hosted at the time by Regis Philbin with his shiny ties, had swept the nation.

Contestants had to answer a series of multiple choice questions which increased in difficulty.

To help them along the way they were given three “lifelines” that would improve their chances of success.

50/50 removed two of the four multiple choice answers.

Ask the Audience allowed you to poll the audience on what they thought the answer was.

And Phone a Friend, where you could call someone who might know the answer.

The man sitting in the chair that night, John Carpenter, was on the final round, and he had not used a single lifeline.

Until now…

Part of being a fearless knitter is about setting yourself up for success.

That can be having a friend at the local yarn store to answer questions, a being a member of the Yarnist Society where you can lean on other experienced knitters.

But sometimes you just need a little “insurance.”

That’s where the LIFELINE comes in.

A lifeline is a strand of waste yarn or thread or even dental floss, which runs through a row a stitches.

It acts like a net to catch you if you make a mistake.

The lifeline forces your stitches to stop unraveling at that point in the project, so you can easily pick them up and start again from that place.

Why would you need a lifeline?

If you’re a fan of knitting complicated lace projects, or something like two-color brioche where its not always possible to just “fix” a mistake, a lifeline can really save your tookus.

Placing a lifeline at the beginning of a long pattern repeat can also help you mark you spot, so you know where to begin again if you have to rip it back.

Or maybe you just want an easy way to pick up your stitches in case you need to redo part of your knitting.

How do you put a lifeline in your work?

There are a couple of ways to do this.

1. Use a blunt needle to thread some waste yarn (ideally in a contrasting color) through one row of stitches at the point you want to be able to rip back to. This is probably easiest to do along the row you just finished knitting.

2. Use a circular needle with a lifeline hole. The yarn can be threaded through the hole and travels with the cord as you knit. Both HiyaHiya and Addi make interchangeable needles with with feature.

Using a lifeline can help you knit more ambitious projects than you might have tried otherwise.

So if you haven’t tried using one before test it out and see how fearlessly you knit!

As for John Carpenter, he used his first lifeline to call his dad…

…and let him know his son was about to be a millionaire.