Sonatine, look how far you have come since your tentative enquiry last year about making a coat, and what a stunningly beautiful coat you made too, and the pattern you chose with all those panels and all that tailoring was not really a beginners first make, but you made something and had this ready to wear during the winter. So now you are venturing into another coat this time for your friend, again lovely colours and you have already thought through what you have to do. Hope the rolling pin is handy. Now just a word to the wise on velvet, this can be really tricky to handle and sew with and of course there is the nap on this. Pressing is going to be fun, strictly speaking a proper velvet pressing board which has sort of needles standing up is the way to go but they are very expensive and if you are not going to be sewing lots of velvet rather a waste of money getting one. However, if you have a decent pile on a towel that will help, but I do not envy you trying to turn a collar out and getting that seam right. Also velvet will show up all marks, - not sure how you can get that collar turned out and pressed without tacking along the edge and that tacking line might not go away. Have you any velvet you can experiment with before you go down that line.
Anyway have fun with this coat making and enjoy the experience. Look forward to watching your progress.