What are lifelines? They allow you to safely and easily go back to a previous line of knitting.

If you’ve dropped stitches you can’t recover, or if you realise the item is not the right size you’ll be grateful for them. It provides a nice little safety net that you can rip back to.

Typically this is done by threading a contrasting bit of yarn through a row. It can be difficult to stop knitting to thread a lifeline through. I knew a lifeline provided a safety net but I still seem to put it off for ages. I’d rather just be knitting!

The quicker, easier, minimal effort way?

If you use interchangeable needles you already have a very handy tool at your disposal. You can add lifelines almost effortlessly while still knitting!

Grab yourself a second interchangeable cable, the same length as the one you’ve been using, and a couple of cable end caps. Twist one of the needles off the live cable and pop an end cap on. Make sure the cap goes on the side with the end of the row.

Put that needle on your new cable with the second end cap to save your stitches from falling off the other side. You now have two cables, each with a needle on one end and an end cap on the other. Using the new empty cable knit across your next row, leaving the original cable in place. When you are done the row transfer the second needle to your new cable and pop its end cap on the original cable.

Now you have a lifeline built in and ready to be pulled out later. Or otherwise, it’s ready to have the needles just popped back on the end should you have to rip back!

After my last post where I raved about how wonderful and amazing contiguous is I realised it could probably do with a bit further explanation and have made a (not so) fancy but hopefully helpful diagram showing how the construction works.

The example below shows a sweater being knit top down and in the round. The view shows as if laid flat, with a sleeve cap on each side and the neckline in the center. Each of the plus symbols represents an increase.

Ready to knit a contiguous sweater? Why don’t you try the Summer Dawn Cardigan. A gorgeous lightweight cardi with a beautiful but simple to knit lace style back. The instructions are very clear and there is plenty of help available if you need it.

I have recently discovered a style of sweater construction called contiguous. It is a very clever method developed by Susie Myers and in my opinion helps obtain a perfect shoulder fit with much less fuss than some other methods. I still do love my raglans but contiguous allows for a whole different approach and most importantly (for me) still means no seaming and the ability to try it on and check the shoulder fit as I go.

How does it work? In a nutshell, the construction is done by casting on for the neckline and continuing to increase every row at the shoulder seams until you’ve achieved shoulder width. If you are used to a raglan construction it can be a bit confusing the first time you try it as it is unusual to see the shoulder seam grow horizontally along your shoulder and not starting the sleeve until later on.

After you’ve knit enough rows so that the sweater is nearly* at the edge of your shoulders you can completely relax about the front and back fitting well and move on to increasing for the sleeve caps. The sleeve caps will have increases at either edge of them on every row for the first section and then slowing down the rate by increasing every other row.

* I say ‘nearly’ to the end of your shoulders because if you do work to the edge of your shoulders you will end up with puffy topped sleeves. Instead if you picture an invisible line running up from your underarm (so the width of your back excluding your arms), this is where you want to stop. If you look at the picture at the top of the post you’ll see where the shoulder seam stops and the sleeve cap begins.

I find this construction gives a lot of confidence in fit before you’ve committed very much time to it. With raglan you increase every other row on front, back and sleeves which makes it more awkward to adjust one or the other without skewing the nice diagonal seam it forms. Again, raglan will always have its place for me but I definitely see a lot more contiguous sweaters in my future!

If this method sounds at all confusing, don’t worry, it will all become clear once you’ve given it a try. If you’re interested in trying this method I’ve recently released Summer Dawn, my first contiguous style pattern and whether it’s your first or fifteenth contiguous sweater be sure to come join us in the knit along on Ravelry!