These buttons have waited more than 20 years for this yarn to come along.

I bought the buttons - there were only two of them - in a closing-down sale, many years ago, just because I loved them. Last year, I found the yarn in a local charity shop. It is some kind of mohair mixture but more than that I can’t say because it was wound into balls and there were no bands.

My two favourite yarns are mohair and those that change colour, with long lengths of colour. This yarn fulfils both of those.

All the designs in the Woolly Thoughts book advocate beginning with a diagonally knitted square but this jacket is knitted entirely from squares knit in the conventional way. It was trial and error to get the correct size for the first square. After that it uses the principles explained in the book.

There is no casting on and no casting off (except at the outer edge of the bands, collar and sleeves) and almost no stitching. Each new square is picked up from an existing square and joined to any surrounding squares as it is worked.

The last photo shows a long coat made in the same way.