The front edge of a coat

If you constructed your jacket the way Cabrera has you to, there is no structural need for any pick stitching on the front edge of the jacket. The edge tape and canvas are both felled to the bottom of the lapel, and as such very firmly fixed. The facing is sewn by machine to the bottom of the lapel. Any pick stitching here is to create a crisper edge and is really just decorative.

But if you do things the fatto a mano way, the hand stitching along the edge of the coat is 100% structural. Without it, the entire facing would fall off. The facing is attached to the lapel entirely because of the hand stitching along the front edge. Cabrera says to use a "slip stitch", but there is no satisfactory explanation of what this is. He has a diagram illustrating the slip stich but I fail to see how it is applicable to the front edge. Hostek says to use a backstitch, a stitch I am familiar with so I went with it instead.

The front of the lapel

The underside of the lapel

I used polyester thread for TG#4 to avoid the expense of silk thread.