Yes, I am still working on my denim jacket . . . though I suppose I should refer to it as a coat. I estimate the finished length (after shrinking) to be about 40 inches, and that is more coat-length than jacket-length.

I am working on a sleeve here:

This is the first sleeve and I’ve been working on it here and there. I also completed the neckband:

So all that remains is for me to knit a further 1.5 sleeves, join the sleeves to the body, sew up the side seams, and throw the whole thing in the washer and dryer to shrink/fade.

Here is a photo of the new sign on the cat side of the veterinary clinic that I take Lucy to:

I don’t know what language the last word in the left-hand column is (can anyone tell me?), but I love what their word for cat is!

Lucy is unconcerned.

I have finished the body of the denim jacket. Here is the back:

Here is the front:

And here is a closeup of the front:

I am about to start a sleeve. The body of this piece is 48″ long (before shrinking) so the sleeves will, in comparison, seem like a breeze. This design has dropped shoulders, and without shrinking, I need the sleeves to be 18″, so allowing for approximately 20% shrinkage, I will knit to 22″ for each sleeve.

We had a big storm blow through yesterday, bringing in some cooler weather. Yay! For the first time in a long time, I had the sunroof on my car open.

And Lucy is settling down for a nap.

Even though I still have quite a lot of knitting to do on my denim jacket, I’ve been thinking ahead to my next project and have been knitting swatches as part of the design process. Here’s a “big” cable:

Here is a panel of “mini” honeycomb stitch:

And here is a filler stitch:

I’m going to put these three elements together for my next project.

The honeycomb stitch I swatched is a honeycomb made up of 2-stitch cables. I thin k I will instead do a larger honeycomb with 4-stitch cables. I think it will “go” better with the main cable. So I’ll re-swatch that piece and see how it looks with the big cable.

Lucy doesn’t really care.

I’m still working along on the Denim Jacket.

That’s the left side front, almost completed. I have yet to make the right side front and the sleeve, so there is still a lot of knitting to be done on this.

Thanks to all of you who left a comment on my last post to be entered in the drawing to win my review copy of  More Than a Dozen Hats & Beanies by Carri Hammett. The winner is Melanie J., who has been emailed.

I was talking this week with a friend (hi Sharon!) about Black Welsh Mountain sheep yarn. Back in the mid 90s I came across a small wool shop in Padstow, Cornwall and bought a quantity of Black Welsh Mountain yarn there. I still have some of it and it is even still in the bag from the yarn shop:

It’s aran weight and I have 587 grams of it:

And Lucy says it still smells pretty sheepy!