~Aphrames’ Invisible Zipper Tutorial~

aphrames:

Hi kids~!! Today I will be explaining how to put in an invisible zipper into a side seam.  ((Or whatever seam, I mean its into a seam… it doesn’t matter where the seam is… okay I’ll stop…))  Zippers come with these instructions, but sometimes I find it easier to have someone else explain it.

Here is our final outcome~

Things that we will need: Fabric, zipper, pins, iron, needle and thread for hand sewing, sewing machine with a zipper foot and seam ripper.

First step is to pin the right sides of our fabric together.

Next we are going to bast stitch the seam that we are going to put the zipper on closed.  It is important to note that if your zipper is not going to take up the entire seam, you should stitch the ends that are not to open with the zipper like normal.  Only bast stitch the parts of the seam that are going to open with the zipper.

We are then going to iron the basted seam open like we would a  normal seam.

Now, we lay the zipper into the seam and pin it into place.  The key is to keep the teeth of the zipper right on top of the basted seam.

Next, take your needle and thread and hand bast the zipper into place.  I’ve heard some people use masking tape instead but that seems hella weird to me and leaves sticky on my seam… so yeah, no thanks.

Now that the zipper is held into place with our hand stitching, we can remove the pins so that our sewing machine doesn’t run into more problems than we need.

Make sure that your sewing machine is outfitted with a zipper foot.  This way we make sure we can sew as close to the zipper teeth as possible and make it look neat.  ((The foot on the left is the regular foot on my sewing machine, the one on the right is my zipper foot.))

Now it’s time to stitch in our zipper.  Stitch from the top ((right side up)) about ¼ inch away from the seam that was basted ((and that is the teeth of the zipper)).

Remove the hand basting…

… and the basting between the seams.

Now we have our zipper stitched into place~

To finish the top and bottom seams just turn over and stitch like normal.

leafypeachy:

chimericfusionprotein:

For anyone else who was as puzzled by invisible zippers as I was (cut me some slack, I’m still a sewing baby), and for those of you who don’t have an invisible zipper foot, this video is ridiculously clear and helpful. Off to go make this skirt!

I could have used this last week! This is very helpful for those of you who are new to invisible zippers!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)