No, I'm not talking about the weather, although I must say that its mildly frustrating to be still wearing sweaters when it's nearly the middle of June!
Bundling is adapted from the garment industry. In factory terms, it traditionally refers to the practice of processing bundles of related garment components (such as shirt fronts with prepared pockets) to specialized workers who perform each task.
While we don't normally need to use industrial techniques to do home sewing, we can still borrow a few tricks to streamline our own production process. One of these is to utilize a version of bundling by preparing multiple garments for construction at once.
Most of us have a part of the sewing process we don't enjoy as much as the others. For me, it would have to be cutting and marking. Partly this is from sentiment - for me, an uncut piece of fabric is an entire world of possibilities. With each circuit of the rotary cutter those possibilities become more limited. But also, it takes a lot of space, intense concentration (I'm often cutting it close on yardage - literally) and attention to detail.
So I bundle - I cut several projects at once. When I'm 'in the groove', so to speak, I try to stay in it. Each garment is cut and packaged up in a large resealable bag (Top Foods has Jumbo bags - 2 Gallon size - that work really well) along with its pattern, interfacing, notions, etc. I may not get to them right away (we won't talk about the 'bundle backlog') but when I'm ready to tackle the project I know that they are waiting for me, ready to go!
--Katrina
