I made this parka last year for my son, with a few adjustments per his wishes. I appreciated the simple, straightforward instructions. It did take a while to make, especially with the fabrics I used, but my son loved it. My son-in-law also loved it and asked me to make one for him this year!

I am waiting for my granddaughter to get a little bigger before I sew this one up for her. Jalie patterns are the best.

This is a complicated pattern, definitely not for beginners. One thing Jalie has done well in other patterns is to colour cycle the adjacent sizes. That would have been helpful here. There is a bit of ambiguity in the pattern pieces: some say size S-AA, others just end at R or S, causing me to wonder what happened to the other sizes?

It would have been *extremely* helpful if the pattern pieces had been referred to by letter in the directions.

In the illustrations for the front pocket there is a diagonal line indicating where to sew. However the pattern pice does not have this line! A sentence saying to connect the letters to make the line would have been nice.

This pattern is almost identical to a North Face jacket I have. Because the jacket is Gore-tex, I used the same fabric. The gore-tex (3 layer) was too thick for the pocket-zipper covering(piping). It's a great way to hide the zipper, but unnecessary because there is a flap for the whole zipper pocket. So, the zipper covering was a bit unnecessary for this jacket. Also, with the notions, it would be helpful to have a length for seam-sealing tape. These jackets are used in the rain in BC, and it would be good to be able to pre-purchase the entire amount.

I made this jacket several years ago; I'll probably wear it forever - it's that good. (OK, if it doesn't last forever, I'll just make another one.) The project as a whole seems pretty advanced; however, if you take the steps one at a time, and do as you're told, you will get through it and have a beautiful result. The one thing I had a problem with was the lining insertion into the shell; I couldn't see how that could work. When I finally pinned it as in the illustration (the illustrations are more helpful than I first thought), and turned the whole ting right side out, I saw that this method DOES in fact work, and works better than anything I'd ever seen before. Anything that can teach me as much as this one pattern did, is definitely worth doing. Thanks!

The pattern is difficult but very rewarding once you see the jacket, I would use it definitely again.