Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. It has been a cold, drizzly week here in NYC and I am utterly SICK OF IT. Thankfully I have a cozy new pastel blue coat to cheer me up:

I made this using the Parker Coat pattern by StyleArc. It is a long line coat with inverted collar and patch pockets, and I loved the smart-casual vibe of the coat, figuring it would pair well with my growing athleisure wardrobe. I did not follow the pattern’s recommendation to use knit fabrics, choosing instead to use a pale blue (woven) wool fabric from my stash.

While I like the look of the finished coat very much, I have a few gripes that I need to get off my chest as far as the pattern is concerned. I purchased the PDF downloadable pattern, which meant that the pattern was broken up into several ‘tiles’ and I had to print out all of the pages and stick them together. The pattern was not laid out efficiently at all - several of the pattern pieces could have easily fit onto only a few pages, had they been positioned with the tiling in mind, but instead the pattern was laid out such that there were tiny slivers or corners of pattern pieces that spilled onto the next page. This is frustrating and wastes paper, and is a problem that could be easily fixed.

Another issue is that some of the pattern markings/text are printed outside the pattern area, in the part of the page that you would discard when you cut the pattern out. This doesn’t make sense - surely you want the markings to stay on the pattern once you have cut it out? Again, this problem would be easily fixed by simply placing the text or markings on the pattern piece.

My other gripe is with the shape of the coat. In my (humble) opinion, the upper part of the coat (around the chest area) is not flattering as there is too much bulk around the armhole - it makes me look like The Hulk and I am not a large lady. Some of this might be because the fabric I used was too thick and had too much body, but I took a look at other peoples’ finished projects online and it looks like there is a lot of volume in their coats as well. I can see having a lot of volume in the upper chest area if this was, for example, a cocoon coat where you are going for a round silhouette. This however is supposed to be a straight, long-line coat, and I just don’t think the roundness in the upper chest goes with the straight silhouette of the bottom of the coat.

Despite these minor nits, overall I love the coat, especially the dramatic inverted collar, which looks particularly good when viewed from the side:

This coat is a fairly simple make, so I added a few special touches to the finishing - I added leather trim to the front facing and a leather triangle at the back vent:

The final verdict? I’m glad to have this cozy addition to my wardrobe, particularly now that my wardrobe has gotten increasingly casual. The coat is so comfy I can even dance in it!

What do you think of the coat? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from others who have made the Parker Coat and made it work for them. Did I go wrong with the fabric choice?