This is progress from the last 3 weeks. Whadya think so far? Kinda sorta like the original? I spent 2 of that swatching about a dozen different patterns for the hem, all of them some type of lace, all of them abandoned because I just couldn't make up my mind which looked best. It was hard to judge with the black yarn. Then I reminded myself that the reason why I was drawn to this blouse in the first place was because of its minimalist straight lines. It was settled: plain ol' stockinette and reverse stockinette.

For the reverse stockinette rows in the hem, I held yarn double for more visible stripes. Same for the thick vertical stripes in the body.

I worked the hem in size 3 needles, then switched to size 6 for the body, which I will make a little long, and no shaping. I want it to drape some over the hem/obi. I might make this a boatneck too.

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Honestly at the start, after finishing the hem, I was feeling rather unenthusiastic about it. But as the fabric grows, so does my opinion of it.

And I've named this Cate, as in Cate Blanchett. I love that actress and the name. Simple and clean. Normally I'd say that "Kate" looks better than "Cate", but "Kate" now leads me to "Katie" which then leads me to "Tom" which then makes me think "crazy wackjob" and my knit deserves better associations.

In other news, I just discovered through my referral logs that I am a member of some "Southern Knit Bloggers" webring. How odd, considering I never signed up to join and I am not southern. Not at the moment. Not southern geographically anyways. (I grew up in various parts of the Deep South: Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia)

I'm not politically southern either. Most definitely not religiously southern.

Nor linguistically, for that matter, although I did use to say things like "fixin' to," like "I'm fixin' to go to the store," but then I came up North for college and got laughed at.

Maybe I'm a little southern gastronomically speaking...but only for very NICHE southern dishes like boiled crawfish and beignets.

But Oh I'm DEFINITELY southern climatically speaking. Every single year around this time, when March rolls around, I begin hyperventilating because March up north heralds not the start of spring, but the start of THREE MORE MONTHS of cold, hard, barren and perhaps even snowy blizzardy weather. Spring is what, this Monday right? I'm going to be scratching my eyes out in 30 degree weather. Where are all the bees? Where is all the pollen? The wonderful faint scent of WISTERIA in the air? Not here my friends, not here. And then I threaten to move back south.

Sigh. If only Boston had Atlanta weather, or if only Atlanta looked more like Boston.

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