About Welts

I was critical of my last project because it was an all too familiar no-brainer. BWOF 09-06-137 presented the other end of the spectrum - a brand new technique I'd never done before - single welt pockets. I felt confident because I'd been successful with double welts using the technique from Pants for Real People, (Palmer & Alto, 2007). According to my convoluted mathematical logic, by definition, single welt pockets were twice as easy as double welt pockets. One-half the number of welts - multiply by the inverse - twice as easy! See? So I should have been able to knock out a single welt pocket in no time. Replacing BWOF's famously vague directions with clear and illustrated directions from Palmer and Alto would only make the task easier. However, I decided to practice a welt or two, just to be on the safe side.

The flaws in my logic became evident very quickly and my initial confidence was replaced with frustration. After two practice attempts, I kept getting the same bad results and I thought, "Forget the mathematical logic! Single welts are more of a PITA than double welts, not less." The end of the welt didn't slip into the opening to form a neat corner. I got more and more aggravated so I took a break. Eureka! The solution finally occurred to me in a flash. The end of the welt wouldn't slip into the opening because I sewed the opening closed. (Duh!) In the midst of my false confidence, I didn't pay close attention to the written directions and depended on the diagrams, which I misinterpreted. Rather than sew completely around the box, I was supposed to sew only one of the long parallel lines to attach the welt. Somehow the illustration gave me the impression I was supposed to sew all the way around the box. As a result of this epiphany, the ends of the welt slid easily into place and yielded the neat looking single welt I expected. When I reread the instructions more carefully, I realized my interpretation was completely wrong and the instructions never said sew the shorter ends of the box. That was an assumption on my part and like most assumptions, it was wrong.

Single welt pockets are no different than double welt pockets. Making one welt takes just as much patience and practice as making two. I spent an entire evening practicing these pockets and about the same amount of time putting them in the pants, but it was time well spent. I'm so glad I didn't get carried away by my confidence and attempt the pockets without first practicing the technique. That would have been a disaster.