I’ve hardly put my needles down in the past week and I have the front and back of the Shibui Linen top to show for it. This yarn is surprisingly pleasant to work with and dispels all my prejudices about knitting with 100% linen.
Although I plan to machine wash the garment in the end, I decided to wet-block the pieces before sewing them together. I soaked the pieces in warm water for 20 minutes, put them in the spin-only cycle on my washing machine, inserted blocking wires through the selvedges, and laid them flat to dry. The striped towel helps be block the pieces evenly.
When the pieces are thoroughly dry, I’ll remove the wires and be rewarded with straight, even edges for seaming. If you have trouble seaming pieces together, try blocking them first with wires — it makes all the difference!