I am already working on my Magnolia Sweater, The Shift cowl, and my upcoming test-knit shawlette from Milly’s Knit Designs, so I figure only logical thing to do is cast on a new project. In my defense, I have been eyeing this lightweight linen top since the first finished projects posted in June of this year. Tsuzumi by Yoko Johnston is a summer top with stockinette on one side and lacy panels down the other that can be tied up together if you choose. The lace can be worn in the front or the back, and I have to say I like both looks.
Tsuzumi is knit top-down in the round, and then you separate for the lace panels which are worked flat. I am knitting mine in Quince and Co.’s sparrow in the truffle colorway:
It is 100% linen and is crisp and almost shiny before it’s blocked. I’ve heard it softens up a lot after you wash it, and based on my swatch it looks like that’s the case.
I hope that the gauge works out. This yarn is very malleable. It knits up as an open fabric, even with tiny needles. I knit my swatch on size 2 needles, and only got 23 stitches for a 4 inch square. It was hard for me to get an accurate measurement of my swatch. When I first bound off, my swatch was a long, skinny rectangle despite casting on 50 stitches and knitting a full 50 rows. The whole thing was maybe 4 inches tall including four rows of garter stitch border on both the top and the bottom. But after I washed my swatch and set it out to dry, it became more or less square-ish, and I was pretty close to the pattern gauge. I still feel like I could block this anywhere from 20 to 40 stitches to a four inch square. It is all over the place. Fingers crossed that I don’t painstakingly knit two panels of lace only to have a doll-sized top, or an XXXL.
What are you working on? Have you ever knit with this yarn? I’d love to hear about it.
A Yarn Tail 