So, yesterday, I talked about what a lifeline was and why it was important. I failed to mention how to insert a lifeline.

You’re thinking there is only one way to put in a lifeline, right? Thread a needle with some contrasting color yarn (I use lace weight yarn! You can use dental floss, embroidery thread, etc, what ever you have at hand!) and carefully weave it into all the live stitches (missing ALL of your stitch markers, don’t forget!). You can certainly do it that way, the hard way, but some interchangeable needle companies have come up with cheats.

I know of three interchangeable needle brands that have built in lifeline threaders! Trust me, they are well worth the price.

First up: my go to needle. Knitpicks: (sorry the picture is a little dark!)

See the two holes? One of them goes all the way through. First, move all your stitches onto the cable part of the needle. Then, simply thread your lace weight yarn on a hand sewing needle (you’ll need a needle threader for it, trust me.) put the needle through the hole, remove the needle and leave a 6-8 inch tail. Work the next row, careful not to grab the lifeline yarn, and presto! You have a lifeline inserted! The only problem with this method is if you have stitch markers. They will get caught on the lifeline. I tend to use removable stitch markers, so this isn’t a big deal, as I can just unlatch them and remove them from the lifeline. If you use static stitch markers, you’d need to remove them the row before you put in the lifeline.

Next up is HiyaHiya interchangeables! I have a set of the small sharp interchangeables and the 16, 20, 32, and 48 inch cables have the lifeline hole, the 60 inch cable does NOT.  Here is a picture:

These work pretty much the same way as the knitpicks :).

Lastly are the Addi click SOS cables. I DO NOT have these:

This hole is in the cable itself, not in the cap. It looks like it’s easy to thread, but I’ve never tried it.

There may be more needles out there with lifeline threaders, I’m just not aware of them.  If you know of any, pleas leave a comment with the name of the needle (and if you can, a link to their website!) and I can add them to this list!