Shakerag yarn alternatives

Several years ago I bought 7 skeins of Rowan Pure Linen, now discontinued. It is 100% linen. I did a swatch on a US 6 needle using one strand and then holding it with a light fingering/lace weight and that meets the gauge for the Shakerag which has been on my wishlist for a while. Has anyone tried the Shakerag with a different linen yarn? Or even a different plant-based yarn What has been the result?

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Here is a link to yarns used on ravelry. Some are linen or linen blends.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/shakerag-top/yarns

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I’m about to swatch for the shakerag using 100% linen! Mine’s also more of a sportweight so it’ll be interesting!!!

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I did a small swatch but I think this calls for a large swatch to test for drape and transparency as well as gauge. I am going to try Sylph but because I like the shape of Shakerag I plan to try to use the Rowan linen for an additional one. I also have some Shibui Twig that seems to work well with fingering.

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Shibui Reed or the discontinued version, Shibui Linen, works nicely with the Shakerag top. I thought it was two dense so so I went up a size needle.

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I made my variation of that pattern in Shibui Fern, all cotton, picked the needle size 5 because it worked best when using the doubled yarns. That automatically gives a reasonable result with a single yarn, and creates good drape. I used two different colors, and varied how wide the double yarn sections were. That allowed me to do the shaping areas of underarm and shoulder in doubled yarn for better stability.

So, shoot for getting needle size to achieve the right drapey but still opaque feel with the doubled yarn. This is an easy garment shape to do a small gauge adjustment calculation, tweaking the number of stitches to cast on up or down a few, for size wanted.

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