At last I've managed to find time to work on my coat project. Today I sewed the front darts and then tacked the body pieces together for a first fitting. I only tacked in one of the sleeves but it was clear it would fit OK across the back, always a key problem for me, so I took the sleeve out and started work on those. I don't have a shot of me in the coat as I have not yet worked out how to set the self timer on my fancy camera. However, I have a photo of the coat on Twiggy. This is the coat with the body tacked, one sleeve complete apart from the hand sewing, the other sleeve awaiting its turn back treatment. Neither sleeve is actually attached to the coat yet, they are just pinned to Twiggy's shoulders. The cream you can see under the main coat is the facing pieces, pinned to Twiggy so everything is in one place. My original plan was to sew the coat body permanently, set the sleeves in, make the lining, including attaching sleeve lining to body lining, which would be the normal way to proceed. However, this coat has turn back cuffs with a tab to hold them in place. I have never made a coat (or indeed anything) with turn back cuffs, but when considering how best to complete the sleeves, the only way I could think to make the whole sleeve neat, reduce bulk (as my coating is really thick), add my tabs neatly AND line the sleeve properly, was to construct the sleeves first, including lining the main part of the sleeve, before I set the sleeves in. Which seems a bit of an odd way to do it, but it does seem to be working OK. I've got one sleeve done except for the hand sewing part and it does look OK. So here is what I did.
First of all, my turn backs are contrast fabric. I therefore cut my main sleeve shorter than the pattern suggested so I could sew on my turn backs. The original pattern has longer sleeves and the turn back is self fabric. I think you would sew the turn back as though it was a facing in that case, adding it to the sleeve lining, or attaching the sleeve lining by hand to the turn back inside having catch stitched the turn back to the main sleeve inside. Mine has a seam and I wanted my sleeve lining to stop at that point. I constructed my sleeve lining and pinned it to the lower edge of the sleeve, raw edges aligned. Next I pinned my turn back piece, which I'd seamed into a ring with a very much narrower seam allowance because of the bulk involved in turning such thick fabric back over the sleeve. So now I had three layers, my lining is sandwiched between them and I sewed my attachment seam. You should be able to just see the three layers in this photo. I now have the lining pinned to the coat sleeve at the sleeve head to keep it in place and out of the way of my next steps. The lining hem is neatly enclosed in between the two layers of wool at the turn back attachment seam. It looks great from the inside but dreadful from the outside as my turnback seam is in full view and I have a sleeve with an ugly seam across the wrist and a massive strip of teal wool attached to it.
Next I made a lining for the turn back, using the same pattern piece as for the turnback but sewing a narrow seam to sew it into a circle, again due to the bulk involved. I pressed the seam allowance under on one edge of the cuff lining and left the other raw. I pinned my tab to the edge of the turnback in the correct location, put the raw edge of my cuff lining to the raw edge of my cuff, sandwiching the tab between the two layers, and sewed the two layers together with a three eighths seam. Bulk was such that I couldn't understitch at this point though it would have been desirable. Instead I drew my lining back a little more than would be normal, pulling the lining seam to the inside of the cuff turn back, pulling the seam slightly under and leaving a nice wide border of wool showing. Pinned it in place and pressed it to keep it nice. 
Next step, which I've not done yet, is to hand sew the turn back lining over the turn back attachment seam, thus enclosing all the raw edges neatly and producing a turn back that is lined with the same lining as the tabs, and the main coat. However, here you can see the cuff turned back, and the neat edge of the rolled back and nicely lined and finished turn back. The hand sewn part will be way down inside the turnback part so won't show at all, ever, nor will it get any significant wear and tear. I hope that this is the way it should have been done. It certainly looks at first glance quite similar to the way my posh purple coat seems to be lined. When I get to the point of installing the lining in the body of the coat I will sew the sleeve lining to the main body by hand. I've done this before on a Chanel style jacket and it worked very well.
Next step is to finish the other sleeve turnback, construct the remaining tabs and sew the body seams permanently. There are also pockets to construct and attach. The sheer bulk of the wool has been the biggest challenge with this coat. It has made making the tabs particularly difficult. I've made a card template to press the tabs into shape over. I've then cut out as much bulk as possible in the seams and then used the template to make linings for the tabs, which I will sew in by hand. I'll make the patch pockets using the same process and then haven't quite decided on the attachment method for the pockets. I know you are supposed to have a plan in place for all stages of a project, but somehow I don't seem to work that way. But I have an article in Threads somewhere about making patch pockets so will look that out as I need to make sure I attach them securely since I tend to fill my coat pockets with more stuff than is strictly sensible so they need to be weight bearing pockets.
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