How to Sew a Zipper
Stephanie OhnmachtDescription
Stephanie Ohnmacht demonstrates helpful tips on how to properly install your center zipper. See how beneficial tape can be when installing a center zipper. Learn a few of her tricks to assist you in creating a strong center zipper.
When installing a center zipper, there's many ways and methodologies to do so. The basic is to go ahead and do your basting stitches for the length of the zipper. So you kind of lay this down on your seam allowance. You know how far to baste. And then you go back to your normal seam stitch length after the zipper end. You open it up. And iron this flat. This is where, this is the easy part, right? You know you're getting your zipper in evenly, with your seam allowance here. But now it's really applying the zipper on top that can be fun and/or frustrating sometimes. You know, I've heard of people pinning their zippers in and then flipping it over to sew, and then pulling the pins out as you go, or hand basting it. I have a trick that I think really cuts out the time and any of the bulk you can get from pinning. And that's using good old transparent tape. So what you do is you lay your zipper down right in the center of your seam allowance. And we're gonna make sure we have it starting right up top, like we'd like. We double-check that the teeth are in the center of the seam. And we just roll it down. And we lay a piece of transparent tape right over it. And we use that to secure it down. And don't be stingy with your tape. And sometimes I am stingy with my tape. But it always helps to have more tape than not, because you have 5/8 and 5/8 to catch, plus a little of the fabric. As you can see, I still need to cut my tape a little bigger. Just keep rolling this down in the center and taping it down. And what we're gonna do, make sure the end is right. You roll it down. Tape yourself. It's like taping a Christmas present. So now all we have to do is flip it over and sew it down. We're gonna sew right through the transparent tape. And you can sew whatever distance you want from the teeth. The teeth will be in the center. Use your zipper foot, stitch down. And once you're done stitching, flip it back over, and all you have to do is peel the tape off, and you're done. Just don't iron the tape to the fabric. Make sure before you do any ironing, you're not ironing the tape down. And otherwise like that, there'll be no stick left on your fabric and it's a nice, easy removal, and a quick way to get a zipper in.
Demonstration was very poor. I still don't know how to do it.
Thanks for such a great How to!
sound problem —speaking began before video came on and lip movement not in-sync with voice and audio went out towards the end. Not a good beginning for this first time "premium" user of your site. Seems that this video is too brief — you need to complete the task: "how to sew a zipper" --
How can you open the zip do you have to use a stitch ripper to open the seam ?
Not clear as to how the zipper will function after being sewn to the fabric. How will you get the seam opened????