Lifeline
So my sewing class was abruptly suspended because of a massive bug that damn near felled me over the last couple of weeks. I was sick like I have never been, and the pieces of cloth are still waiting, all cut and marked, to be worked over into something wearable. My father swears it’s the sewing machine that did it – it is true, the foot-pedal thingie looks easier than it actually is, especially for a novice – but I think it was something a lot more devious than a rattling piece of metal. I don’t know if it was the delirium from the fever or the fact that the blessed monsoon has STILL not broken over Pune, that made me reach for a long-forgotten lace project. My red sampler from Victorian Lace Today, started, oh, just a year or so ago. It is currently my only project on the needles.
For some reason it’s going a lot faster now than it did when I first started it. I’ve already progressed a couple of inches after twoodays of feverish knitting. Of course, I did stupid things like put the lifeline through the marker instead of around it. I then got lazy about reinserting it, whereupon it naturally began to pucker and pull and make a nuisance of itself. I have to say, it’s a good thng lifelines really *are* lifelines, because inserting them is also a royal PITA. I thread a long needle and then insert it stitch by stitch on the row on the needle, preferably at a simple stockinette row. There isn’t a simpler way to do it, is there?
Of course, taking up a long-dormant project under less-than-ideal conditions of concentration has its pitfalls. I should have chucked the faggoting right in the beginning, I just knew it. I hate faggoting. (For non-knitting readers: it’s not what you think. It’s a lace stitch). The look is not worth the effort, and I always forget if the YO comes before the K2tog or after, and if it’s K2tog or Ptog on the WS. So of course I went and screwed it up for a few rows, and now there’s an unsightly, diagonal ladder in the middle of the cascading knots, like a trap set on the tracks for an unsuspecting train. Can’t you just see it going right off the rails there?
I know. I should fix it. But the lifeline is already above that part, and I feel like it missed its chance to get fixed. It has to stay there as a reminder to me the next time I see faggoting in a pattern and say – it’s only four stitches, I can do it! Luckily I’m not a perfectionist, especially when it comes to lace, and so I’m going to avert my eyes and just ignore it. When it’s an FO, like, another year from now, not one of you is going to remember this post and look for it in the pictures, are you?
I didn’t think so.
drool over color and lace..
about stitch marker/lifeline problem.
You can probably make a snip on the lifeline and make a rees knot. That’ll fix it.
Love the color. I am sure pattern is fascinating. Oh you remind me if various patterns I used to ‘droll’ over and then not use it … same k2tog, Yo thigies were soo complicated
Hoping to see finished product soon.
Hope you feel better soon! I have knit lace yet. Well, other then socks with lace details!
I meant, I have *never* knit lace yet!
It’s beautiful… as far as I know, the only easier way to do lifelines is if you have knitpicks interchangeable needles (or maybe also other interchangeables). They have a little hole in them where you insert the key to tighten or loosen them, and you can thread your lifeline through them and it gets threaded through as you knit the row. Probably not all that helpful right now, but perhaps for the future?
Oh-ho-ho, I’m going to remember this post much longer than a year. Brilliant. It works for faggotting as well as non-faggotting readers of the blog. In life as in lace? (And will you please take off the nonsensical question at the end of the Comment field trying to figure whether the readers are faggotted or not?)
sorry to hear you were sick… hope you’re getting a lot of rest and pampering!
the lace looks really good btw….and faggoting really is a )(*&^%$^&(*). I did a WHOLE BL**** SCARF in the stitch to try memorize it last year (i know….bad idea. i somehow convinced myself that muscle memory will work here, but that happened only for the frogging), and am yet to get back to knitting after that trauma.
Wonderful lace knitting! I love knitting lace!
Hint: to put in lifeline, hold working yarn and lifeline yarn in opposite hands and work in lifeline yarn as if doing a float on intarsia knitting at the same time you knit a row of lace with working yarn. I like to work the lifeline in every other stitch, you know, make the float every other stitch. Of course this will only attach lifeline to the wrong side of the work, but it is an easy and quick way to do it.
I wanted to thank you for the hammer and sickle graph. I am knitting a hat for a friend with unique political views, too, and finally found your web-site with the graph! Thank you so much! Graphing drives me batty!
This red is just gorgeous. Hope the bug is gone for good and you’re feeling better.
[...] with the saturation that I haven’t knit anything non-red or non-crimson in nearly a year. My sampler shawl is also this color, and the BPT cardigan was a similar shade too. I think I need to look at some [...]
[...] knitting time. Can you believe that I have only two WIPs right now, this one and the never-ending sampler shawl? The lace, of course, will take still more time, but let’s hope this mostly-stockinette [...]