Making things one at a time sounds nice.
Pick a fabric, cut out a bag, sew the entire thing, photograph it, put it away, and start over with the next one.
I would get absolutely nothing done.
When you're making products to sell, there's a lot of time hiding between the obvious steps. Changing thread. Pulling out different supplies. Cutting interfacing. Switching machine settings. Setting up hardware. Pressing. Cleaning everything up just to pull it all back out again for the next product.
That's where batch sewing comes in.
Instead of making every item individually from beginning to end, I group parts of the process together. Sometimes that means cutting several products at once. Sometimes I'm doing the same sewing step over and over. And sometimes I'm preparing a whole stack of inventory that won't actually be finished until someone orders it.
It's not the most romantic version of handmade production, but it's how I can make everything myself without spending half my day repeatedly setting up for the same task.
It usually starts with cutting
I tend to buy fabric in relatively small quantities — usually around two yards — and I don't particularly like storing a lot of uncut yardage.
So I cut it.
I'll look at what I'm low on, what needs to be restocked, and what makes sense for that particular print. One piece of fabric might get divided among several different products rather than becoming a batch of identical bags.
This is also where print size matters. A small-scale design gives me plenty of options, while a large print might steer me toward certain products simply because they give the design enough room.
Once everything is cut, the remaining usable pieces go into my scraps rather than taking up space as an awkward little chunk of yardage I'm supposedly going to remember I own six months from now.
Cutting inventory doesn't mean I'm sewing all of it
This is probably the biggest difference between how I batch sew now and what people might picture when they hear the term.
I don't necessarily take everything I cut and immediately turn it into finished inventory.
I'll finish pieces when I need them for markets or photographs, but much of my inventory can stay pre-cut until it's ordered. That gives me the efficiency of cutting several things at once without requiring me to spend the time — or storage space — finishing every possible product and print combination before anyone has actually bought it.
Once an order comes in, I already have a head start.
The fabric is chosen. The pieces are cut. I'm not starting from two untouched yards and a pattern.
I still have to actually make the thing, of course.
When I'm sewing multiples, I don't make them one by one
If I do have several of the same product to make, that's when the assembly-line part of batch sewing becomes especially useful.
Rather than completely finishing Bag A, then starting Bag B, then starting Bag C, I'll usually do the same operation across several pieces before moving forward.
If everything needs interfacing, I can do the interfacing together. If I'm at a particular construction step, I can work through that step on the whole batch. If several pieces use the same thread or machine setup, I might as well take advantage of that while everything is ready.
It can feel repetitive, but repetition is kind of the point.
Every time I don't have to stop, put something away, change my setup, and figure out where I was in another project, I've saved myself a little time.
Multiply that across everything I make, and those little bits matter.
Some things don't batch nicely
Unfortunately, sewing does not always cooperate with my attempts to make it efficient.
Different prints can require different thread colors. Hardware changes. A particular fabric behaves differently. Something needs more careful pattern placement. One product has a step that can't conveniently be combined with anything else I'm working on.
And sometimes I simply don't have enough of the same thing to create a particularly impressive batch.
That's fine.
Batch sewing is useful because it removes unnecessary repetition, not because every second of my sewing day needs to become part of an optimized manufacturing process.
I'm still making things by hand in a sewing room, not running a factory.
Pressing still interrupts everything
There are some steps you can't really cheat.
Pressing is one of them.
It's tempting when you're moving through a stack of pieces to keep sewing and tell yourself you'll deal with all the pressing later. Unfortunately, sewing has a habit of making you regret decisions like that.
Some seams need to be pressed before the next step. Some pieces need shaping. Sometimes getting everything sitting correctly now saves considerably more aggravation later.
So yes, even when I'm trying to move efficiently through a batch, I still stop and press when the construction calls for it.
My iron remains employed.
Batch sewing also makes mistakes more efficient
There is one danger to doing the same thing repeatedly: if you're doing it wrong, you can do it wrong several times before you notice.
Ask me how I know.
That's why I'm much more careful when I'm making a new product or changing something about a pattern. I'll make one first, see how it comes together, and adjust anything that needs adjusting before I commit the rest of my cut pieces to the same fate.
Once I know the process works, then repetition becomes helpful.
Making the same mistake six times is technically very efficient.
It's just not the kind of efficiency I'm looking for.
Handmade doesn't have to mean one at a time
I think sometimes there's an image of handmade products being created individually from beginning to end: one person sits down with a piece of fabric, makes one complete thing, and only then begins another.
I certainly can work that way.
It's just not always a very good use of my time.
Batch sewing lets me organize the repetitive parts of making things without removing the handmade part. I'm still the person cutting the fabric, sitting at the sewing machine, pressing the seams, installing the hardware, and finishing the product.
I've just learned that if I need to do the same thing five times, it's usually a lot easier to do it five times while I've already got everything set up.
And considering I'm the entire production department at Momako Designs, I'll take the help wherever I can get it.
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