I have an object. I want more than one hole in that object.

I can create one hole in an object by doing this:
I create an object that has the shape of the hole that I want to create.
I place this second object over the target object.

I do 'object'->'clip'->'set',

That works well.

But if I repeat the same process a second time on the same object, I get completely weird results.

So how do I create a second, third or fourth hole inside an object?


 

One thing I've tried:

Converting both the target object and the objects that I want to to use as the shapes of the holes into paths.

Then with one or both "hole shapes" selected and on top of the target object, I try the 'path'->'exclusion' operation.
This just makes the target object vanish.

This is a simple operation in theory. I can't figure out why it's so insanely hard to figure out in practice.

I'd take the "hole shapes" and Combine them, then use the inverse clipping operation.