Thursday, January 14, 2010

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.

11 comments:

  1. Like you I have a lot of experience and sometimes that works against me. I assume that I know all the steps so even when pulling out source instructions I just skim through them. When I am having issues sewing something I pretend I know nothing and proceed from there. Works every time. I think I am going to add single welt pockets to my next pair of pants. Looks like they'll be a nice pair of pants.

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  2. Those are some cute pants. I'm looking forward to see yours with the perfect single welt pockets. Just as soon as I lose my belly, I'm going to try some pants with welt pockets too. Thanks for the reminder not to make assumptions.

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  3. It's always good to practice a technique before applying to a garment no matter how many times you've done it. Especially when cutting a hole in a perfectly beautiful piece of fabric! Your persistence paid off, big time! Nice job.

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  4. I have never made welt pockets .... one of these days I'm going to try. Yours look beautful!

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  5. Your welt turned out perfectly!

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  6. Haven't tried welts yet, single or otherwise. Yours look very neat !

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  7. What a great job you did - seems like I need to study the instructions every time.
    http://fabricateandmira.wordpress.com/

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  8. Nice pattern and your welt looks perfect:)

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  9. thanks for this information. I tried to make a pair of BWOF shorts that had this pocket once and never could figure out what to do from their instructions. Now I want to go do some practice and put these puppies on my next pair of slacks!

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  10. Good for you for figuring it out and figuring it out in practice stage rather than just going for it on your real pants! The welts look beautiful.

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