Throw me a lifeline

That's a picture of some contented knitting which knows that whatever goes wrong later, it won't need to be ripped out. You see, it's got a lifeline through it. We've talked about lifelines before - how grateful we are to the clever knitter who worked out how to save your work as you go. That line of non-sticky yarn lying quietly through your stitches makes you a more relaxed knitter, even if you never have to rip back to your lifeline. But there's more than one way of lifelining your work. As well as using a yarn needle, as we showed you last year, you can use your Knitpro interchangeable needle to do all the work as you knit with it. You see, the needle tips have a little hole in them so you can tighten the join (there's details in this post). All you have to do is thread your lifeline strand through that wee hole in the needle you're going to knit onto... ...and then start to knit your row. As you work your way along it, your righthand needle will effortlessly pull the lifeline through every stitch. After a few stitches, you can stop if you like and admire what's going on: If you're using stitch markers, then the lifeline will get threaded through them as you go. They'll be fixed in place till you take the lifeline out, but that's not a bad thing at all. Just insert another set of markers on your next row and then, should you need to retrieve the stitches from the lifeline, your rescued row will have its stitch markers still in place and ready to go. When your knitting is finished, your lifelines will pull out as if they'd never been there (if they're holding stitch markers, remember when you pull, so you can catch them!). That knitter who invented lifelines did us all an enormous favour, don't you think? If you're curious about what's being knitted in these pictures, it's the early stages of Pogona, a lovely Stephen West pattern in Louisa Harding Amitola. We'll be sure to show you the finished article - it looks like it will be a lovely combination of yarn and design. One last thing: we got two much anticipated deliveries into the shop today. First there was lots and lots of amazing new Coolree hand-dyed yarn, including a chunky-weight pure alpaca and a superbly sheeny silk/baby camel laceweight. Then there was a large box from Knitpro with plenty of new tips and cables and such, but also a very special limited-edition Dreamz set in a presentation case (if you know someone who deserves a very special present, then...). We've been tweeting about these from @ThisIsKnit, as you would imagine, so you can see pictures here and here and here. They look even nicer in person, though....