Setbacks and Lifelines

Have you been wondering about the "setbacks" I mentioned at the end of the last post? Well, let me start at the beginning...

Shortly after posting that I had made it to the yoke of the Woven Cables Sweater, I finished the straight part and had to figure out the shaping. I decided to insert a lifeline at this point so that if the shaping didn't work out, I could easily rip out the sweater back to this point. (A lifeline holds a row of stitches and prevents them from unraveling any lower than that row.)

See the line of dental floss acting as the lifeline?

The hard way to insert a lifeline is to thread a needle and run it through every stitch on the needle. An easier way I read about was to thread the end of the line through the hole found at the cable needle joint (circled in red below)

and then knit a row. As you knit, the line is threaded through the stitches as you go. I was glad to have a chance to try out this method because it is simply brilliant!

With this lifeline in place, I merrily knit along. I progressed for many inches (3 to 4, at least). When I started the split for the V-neck I reevaluated. And realized that I had calculated improperly and started the V-neck at half the height it needed. Oh crap!

So I did more calculations to figure out how far back to go. I decided I needed to go back to 10 rows above the lifeline. Ten rows were too much to reknit, in my opinion, so instead of ripping back to the lifeline, I ripped it out the old fashioned way. (Pulling out the needle, ripping back to row I needed and picking up all the stitches again--although it's never quite as neat and simple as that sounds.)

Alas, my calculations were off again (where did this girl get her math degree?) and I ended up taking out five more rows, putting me only five rows above the lifeline. I should have just ripped back to there and knit the five rows. It would have saved me some time and aggravation, and certainly would have made this post on lifelines more to the point! Oh well, sometimes you I learn the hard way.

Since then, I have regrouped and started knitting again. I believe I've started the neck shaping at the right point and am now working back and forth (as opposed to in the round).

The good news is that I made Troy try it on again shortly before I ripped it all out and it looked like the shaping was fitting well.

Meanwhile, I'll just be grateful that anything that needs to be ripped out can be knit again. No small consolation when you think about it.