The Safety Line

Ever wanted to try something new, awesome, incredibly exciting? Lots of colours, intricate lace patterns, rare yarn, new techniques? Well, I do! And if you're anything like me, you probably know from experience, that trying out new stuff quite often results in a lot of tears and frustration.

Why? Because it doesn't matter how well you know your gauge. If you try out lace for the first time, the fabric gets rather stretchy, so you'd better cast on a couple of stitches less. Knitting with more than one colour stranded? You'd better knit rather loosely, but be sure to cast on a couple of stitches more. But here is the 100 Mio. $ question: How many more (or less)? To find that out you would have to knit a gauge in the proper pattern. If you knit socks, you'd better do it in rounds, too. And if you're anything like me, you'd probably skip that part, because you want to get started with your project. Right now!

Maybe there are parts of your project, that you do not have to worry about, except for, let's say, a particular heel, which is an awesome fit, but rather difficult, because it involves a lot of counting. If you make a mistake there, you know what follows: FROGGING! There it is, the dreaded word: frogging. Tearing up a faulty part of ones work is annoying enough. But the process of picking the stitches up again, can be maddening. Twisted stitches and ladders. They can become trusty friends.

What to do, what to do... just imagine, if there was an easy way, and a cheap one, too, to 'save' the current state, try out the difficult part, and if it doesn't work out, you can just revert to the saved state and start again. And if it does work out, you can just continue. And maybe even have several 'safety points'? Wouldn't that be great?

Well, good news: there is such a thing: The Safety Line! A safety net that consists of a piece of waste yarn and a tapestry needle. But how does it work?

Well, simple really. The piece of waste yarn has to be long enough, so that it fits comfortably, even when stretching the fabric. So for a sock, maybe you'd better take a piece of yarn, that is twice the circumference of the foot. And it has to be of the same thickness as the yarn of your project, or better still, a bit thinner. And do not use a fluffy thing! The colour doesn't matter, since you will pull that thing back out, if you do not need it anymore.

If you have yarn and tapestry needle assembled, you are ready to start: First insert the needle into the first couple of stitches as if to knit:

Pull the yarn through and keep on doing that until all the current stitches do not just hang on their needle, but also the yarn. While threading the yarn through the stitches, do not take them off the needle!
And here is, what it looks like after working the difficult part:

The heel is knit, the yarn can be pulled out!
If you had made a mistake, all you would have to do, is to yank the needles out and frog as long as you can. Do not worry, as soon as you come to the safety yarn, you will be stopped! Then pick up the stitches again, but be careful not to divide the safety yarn!

Sooner or later, you will know the proper gauge. Maybe you hit it right the first time, maybe the second, maybe the tenth. But no matter how long it takes, the rest of the sock is safe.