You might not know this but Penelope is my favourite movie on earth. When I saw this pattern last year on boxing day, it reminded me of Penelope's coat and I NEEDED it. 

Fun fact: Penelope is my style idol. 

As you may have noticed my coat looks nothing like Penelope's. The reason for that is that there were no good deals on purple heavy-weight fabrics. I spent a total of $87 that day (including a lifetime supply of interfacing, black thread and white thread) so I still felt pretty good about myself. Since my fabric didn't look like the one I wanted, I decided to make it an entirely different coat by choosing view D. Now, when I make the Penelope coat, it won't look like I have become one of those moms who buy the same shirt in all the available colours. 

When starting this project, I decided to add 5cm to the length of my coat. This proved to be more problematic than initially anticipated. The skirt of the coat is shaped like a circle skirt, so when I added length, I also added width. This caused all of my pattern pieces to overlap. Luckily, I had previously decided to omit the hood, allowing me to use that space to further spread out my layout. In the end, I only had to sacrifice some of the seam allowance in my sleeves.

In all, the construction of the garment was pretty straightforward. There were no moments during which I felt the dire need to rip apart my instruction pamphlet. The only time I got the urge to dump the entire project was while slip-stitching (so about 99% of the time?). If you don't know what slip-stitching is, it is a type of hand sewing where the stitching cannot be seen on the outside or inside of the garment. I wanted my garment to look as high end as possible, so naturally I chose to slip-stitch all of the hem on the sleeves and the skirt, AND the lining (why do I hate myself?). 

Note: the hem of the coat is roughly a kilometer long.   

Another feature I incorporated to add to the expensive look were the bound button holes. This was also me trying to avoid fights with Jeremiah, my school sewing machine (yes, I named him). It required somewhat more work, but in the end Jeremiah and I were happy, and my coat looks like a million dollars! 

"Would you sew this again?" When faced with this question my immediate reaction is NO. NEVER SLIP-STITCHING AGAIN. But then I remember what could be my Penelope jacket, and I remind myself that it will be different next time because I will use this method of lining meant for people who hate hand sewing, like me. 

In the end, this project has become the pride and joy of my existence.  I am looking forward to the really cold weather to kick in, not only because I genuinely enjoy it, but also because I get to wear this coat!!