Edo Period Coat Restoration: The Quilted Lining (Stage 3)

Project 9, part 9 – What Makes a Man Turn Neutral? (Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 here)

Welcome back to the Edo period coat restoration project! Remember this? It’s still a thing! It’s honestly a dead heat between this project and the Victorian undergarments project as to which one will claw its way to the finish line first, but I am still chipping away at both. 😀 (For reference, that is Project #7, this one is Project #9, and my current project is Project #15, lol.)

What causes a project to stagnate? I imagine it’s different for everyone, of course. For me there are two major factors. One is a lack of resources – maybe I can’t afford something I need, or maybe something I need is coming from overseas and taking its sweet time, or maybe I need assistance from my husband with something and his schedule hasn’t been compatible.

The other is, not a lack of interest, precisely, but more a lack of novelty. Doing the same thing over and over is really tough for me. I have to be highly motivated by something beyond the task to continue, and frankly, it’s hard for me to get excited about working on a jacket during the spring and summer months. 😅

Luckily for this project’s potential completion, it’s been a particularly cold and rainy winter so far! So after what’s felt like absolutely MILES of stitching, the quilted lining is at last complete!

I’m SO happy this is done, I can’t even express it. I made this way harder on myself than it needed to be by not doing a paper trace and pattern of the jacket – I kept having to cut all sorts of weird little strips to fill in sections where the lining pieces didn’t fit together properly. I also very nearly forgot to cut a hole for the little toggle loop on the interior; whoops! But at last, it’s complete, and it’s going to get tremendously easier from here. The next step is covering up all this patchwork nonsense with the silk lining. After that I can add in some facing fabric I’ve chosen to strengthen and protect the hems and sleeves, and reattach the last two toggles. Finally I’ll insert a new collar interfacing and repair that!

It’s been a long road with this, and I’m not to the destination yet. But finishing the quilted lining puts me a LOT closer to the end than I was back in March (of 2022…yikes…haha). So I look forward to keeping the momentum going and maybe even finishing this by the spring! If you haven’t already, please subscribe below to get a notification each week about my latest post, and I look forward to seeing you next week here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤