I seen others have had trouble understanding the pattern but I found it pretty easy to work up. Once you have the repeats set up it flows pretty quickly. I love the end results and my fur baby looks so cute in it! (I think I love it more than he does though ;) it is a great free pattern!

The pattern is difficult to understand, and I've been doing crochet for over 20 years. I'm attempting to make the largest size and it definitely fits my mixed breed who is about 55 pounds with a neck of 19 and chest of 30. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing by the row's 2-4. So I went online to find a video of this being done. There is a video by "The Crochet Crowd," and in it the person shows the pattern instructions AND THEY ARE COMPELTELY DIFFERENT. Doing the persons instructions made this pattern work, but this pattern states has you doing a chain 3, and then double crochet and single crochet, and when I did those in each stitch it came out awful. So I thought I'd try alternating 1 single in a stitch and one double in a stitch. This makes it more close to a textured pattern and that did work out fine, However the video instructions have you doing ONLY 1 chain on a turn, then single crochet in every stitch. Every even row you do there is an extra single stitch on the first and last stitches. THAT is working out beautifully. But this pattern has been rewritten to include confusing language, and double crochet's that maybe shouldn't even be there. I dunno. But when following that video it's going well. When following the written instructions there's just information that's missing. ie It says on row 3: single crochet and double crochet in parenthesis, which in any other pattern would mean that goes into a single stitch. Doing that made the whole row wonky and weird.

This coat is a sweater. This pattern is written with the assumption that you know exactly what you are doing and what the pattern writer means... Sure, "pat" means pattern, but no clarification of what the pattern is. "Even in pat" isn't explained... your guess is as good as mine, as I've never heard/seen that instruction anywhere else. You'll eventually work it out or just tear out your work and find another pattern to use. The pattern has very few explanations. It's mostly just sparse instructions with stitch counts that come waaay to late in the game. I'm pretty certain I've stitched enough while doing this pattern to have completed it at least once... Unfortunately, most of the stitching comes after tearing out sections repeatedly to get the desired (I guess?) result. I've made it half way and am rapidly losing interest in completing this project. I'm a long-time crocheter (30+ years), this has to be the most challenging "easy" pattern I've had to work... and not in a good way. I see on Ravelry that some people have completed the pattern. Kudos to those who managed to complete it. But, I can't help but notice that each completed project looks a bit different... different collar styles, different sleeves, different body shapes... and, oddly, even different stitches. Honestly, this design is very cute. It's why I chose to try it. I really wanted to make two of these for my dogs. I just wish the pattern had instructions that gave a bit more clues on what needs to be done and how to do it to be successful with the pattern. Even a simply sketch/diagram for shaping would help!