Adding a lifeline to your knitting

In knitting, a lifeline is a smooth piece of yarn, usually of lighter weight than the working yarn, that is inserted into the knitting periodically. It's used to prevent lost stitches when ripping out, or frogging, the work. Mistakes happen. We all do it. Lifelines can be saviors, especially when working lace, when those mistakes are discovered too far away to make undoing the knitting one stitch at a time a feasible thing to do. Multiple lifelines can be used in each project. They're often inserted after each successful pattern repeat.

Using either a needle (easier) or crochet hook (if a needle isn’t handy), thread a smooth, contrasting yarn through all the stitches on the needle from one end of the row to the other. Continue knitting, while avoiding putting the needle through the lifeline, as this makes it quite difficult to remove later.

Leave any lifelines in the work until all rows have been knit, and the project has been cast off.