Now is when I get to worry that my welt pockets and bound buttonholes will ruin all of my careful work thus far. The pattern instructions, while accurate, are very broad, and you would need to know for yourself how to make welt pockets and bound buttonholes before attempting this pattern, I'm afraid.
The bound pocket, before pressing, pictured above. All told, it must have taken three hours (no lie) to get these pockets sewn. The sewing needed to be quite precise to look well in this fluffy fabric, and if I screwed it up, I seriously wouldn't be able to afford the fabric for new front pieces. This is when I also started to question the wisdom of sewing with fabric I really can't reasonably afford to replace... or at least doing so would make for an astronomically expensive garment! Hmmm... Guess I'll think about this after I sew my next few projects, for which this fact is also true...
So this part of the process also prompted some deep soul searching, as I questioned the value of spending a whole three hours on my own coat pockets, when that time could have been spent on a client's project, or doing something, ANYTHING else. Oddly enough, I don't feel the same guilt over watching a movie, or going for a walk, yet I lament three hours of time spent on something that is just a detail, for myself only, since, if I were pricing this particular project out for a client, this would be a darn expensive coat! I also question why I didn't take the easier road; flatlining the entire thing, making slit pockets, using the same flaps, closing the coat with a center front zipper with a front placket and/or buttons with loops, frogs or toggles, to spare the pain of bound buttonholes. (In the end, I didn't do bound buttonholes because of my unusual button decision.)
Oddly enough, I don't fret nearly as much over my now FIVE year quilt, or nearly TWO year scarf, which I have comitted to completing while away on our brief summer vacation, which has come and gone... and during which I probably had a total of 20 minutes of actual downtime.
I'm loving it anyway, and whether you, my dear readers, love it or hate it, the fact remains that this is not a garment that could ever be mass produced. These fiddly details, bias bindings, smal changes to suit my personal preferences wouldn't be done by anyone's hands but my own. So yes, I'm glad I did it. But then again, I'm not done yet...
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