yesterday, a fellow crafty blogger mentioned that she was "tackling her first zipper," which made me realize that i absolutely have to share a zipper trick. this comes from my peace corps mom, lady D, who taught it to me when i was whining about sewing a zipper into a basic seam. this trick will not work for all zipper applications, but is perfect for those of you who just want the basics.
step 1. gather your materials. my plan is to make a little zippered pouch, like the one i found on the three bears blog, so i am starting with two rectangles and a zipper. if you have a serger i recommend serging the edges where you will place the zipper (i opted to serge all of my edges, because i will have exposed seams inside my pouch).
step 2. put right sides together and baste a 1/2" seam. baste=set your machine to make long stitches.
step 3. press the seam open. place the zipper face down on the pressed seam.
step 4. match the center of the zipper to the center of the seam and pin the zipper in place. make sure your pins are on the other side of the fabric, because when you sew the zipper will be on the bottom.
step 5. make sure you reset your stitch length so that you are no longer basting and attach your zipper foot. carefully top-stitch on both sides of the seam. i always start from the closed end. when i get to the end with the pull tab i put the needle down, life the presser foot, and carefully slide the pull tab behind the presser foot. then i put the presser foot back down and continue sewing to the end of the zipper. i change the position of the zipper foot and needle to sew on the other side and repeat the process.
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| sewing with the zipper on the right or the left. |
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| when you get close to the zipper pull, you can carefully slide it behind the foot, and continue sewing straight to the end. |
step 6. use a seam ripper to take out the basting stitches.
step 7. i like to sew another line of top-stitching on each side of the zipper. voila! a zipper. easy peasy, lemon squeezee.
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| top-stitching a second line. |
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| a finished zipper! |
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