Tackled

When faced with a huge task I often find it difficult to get started. I put it off and put it off until it becomes unavoidable and by that time I have to rush, skimp on sleep, trust my children to the tender loving care of the television, and the task fulfills all of the nightmares that lead me to procrastinate it in the first place.
So how do I work around this tendency when there are say, 13 dresses waiting to be made for a fast approaching wedding?
I break it down.
Into
bite sized
pieces
For the last wedding I did I was sewing for a lot of little girls I didn't know, so that time I worked systematically through the sizes setting daily goals like, "Today I will cut all of the size 5 bodices"
This time I'm sewing for my very own nieces so it's easier to keep track of them by name/family relationship than by size.
Today's goal was to cut and sub-assemble the skirts for my oldest sister's 4 girls. This started out as yesterday's goal but I didn't so much as look at the fabric yesterday, so it got bumped to today.
Do you know how much easier it is to start working on a goal like that than it is to dig in to a project called "make an undefined half of 13 elaborate gowns which range in size from a ladies 6 to 0-3 months"?
I'd say it's about 90% easier. So much easier that I even surpassed today's goal. That's right I went above and beyond cutting the 3/4 of Zizza's skirt.
I still have 4 1/4 skirts to cut and 5 to sub assemble. Then comes the finishing work, I'll need to buy the green woolly nylon thread to use in the rolled hem feature on my serger. I generally stick with my trusty single needle machine using this method but I've got 9 multi-layered organza circle skirts to hem so I'm going with the serger this time.
Why do I have only 9 skirts to hem when there are 13 dresses to me made? Well, my second oldest sister who designed the dresses is making the organza skirts for her 3 girls. Plus, my newest tiny niece (not yet a week old) will not be wearing voluminous organza as we'd all like for her mother to be able to keep hold of her and voluminous organza skirts are really not conducive to that.
With all 9 of the organza underskirts made, I'll be ready to head to Utah for the wedding. Once I get there, my second oldest sister and I will ship our children off to their aunties, combine the skirts I've made with the bodices and over skirts she's made and proceed to sew like the wind (name that movie) until all 13 gowns are complete.
Sounds fun huh?