How many things is too many things to sew at once....???

Well as of this weekend gone, the black suit looks more like a suit and less like weird looking pieces of fabric!

But before I got into the sewing last Saturday, I was super excited to take Miss Stella for a walk because it was our first sub-zero morning!  We don't get a lot of mornings below zero (celcius, that is) so when we do and there is a heavy frost, I always get excited.

I was huffing clouds - not that you can see them!

I have to make Stella wear a coat on these mornings....

After an hour outside I went back to bed with a cup of tea for a bit, then got on with my day!

First up I made the bound button holes in the jacket front.  There is only three of them in this suit, which made a refreshing change!

With that done I started on the construction!  Before long I had something that looked decidedly suit-like!

But thats really where the amazing progress stopped.  Because at this point I needed to put the heavier collar canvas onto a few pieces that need extra shape, and do the pad stitching.

By the way, this hair canvas and the collar canvas I'm using came from an etsy seller that I'd highly recommend.  Her canvas is wonderful quality!  You can find her here.

So after a little bit I had all the pieces ready for yet more hand sewing... sigh!

I started with the collar because it was the smallest piece of pad stitching that needed to be done.  And can I tell you that sewing through this stuff is like sewing through heavy cardboard!  Its not easy!  But it is completely amazing.  Its 100% linen, and with steam and time to cool it can be shaped - and the shape holds!  Once I had finished the collar I put the suit on my headless helper and turned on my steamer. I steamed and shaped it and then padded it out to hold the shape as it cooled, and in the morning I had this.

See how it sits out there all by itself!  And its really stiff too, so its really going to hold that shape. (Yes, I have since redone it to make it more even).  By this point it was Sunday, and that meant that I needed to put the suit aside and go back to working on the 7 vintage border print skirts.

After turning them all into tubes (by sewing each end together) I started working on the waist bands.  This mostly consisted of cutting and measuring, but the one for the hat box print was a bit more complicated.  The polkadot border at the top of the fabric was too close to the selvedge so I wasn't able to cut it how I wanted.  So instead I cut the border out separately and stitched it onto the piece to use as the waist band.

When that was done, I sewed the gathering stitches onto all seven skirts, and sewed the hems.  Then I was out of time.

I'm hoping that by this time next week I will have 7 skirts! (and a half constructed suit).

And that brings me to the title of this post.  I'm sewing 8 garments at once here.  Sure 7 of them are exactly the same thing, but I'm beginning to think I've completely gone mad!  Has anyone done anything similar before?  Was it successful?

Of course, once I've finished the 7 skirts, I need to start on the 7 blouses.....

Beccie
xxx