What’s the Project? Need to know how to sew a zipper? (You can admit if you’re scared-they can be tricky!) They don’t have to be hard. This tutorial will walk you through all the basics of adding in a zipper when sewing.
It’s another week of the Learn to Sew series! Now we’ve reached the lesson where my mom might start to cringe. I’m going to teach you how to sew a zipper in. People seem to get really scared of zippers and I don’t feel like they are worth the fear. But, I am also not sure that I do it by the book (the reason for my mom’s cringing). But guess what? The way I do them works and takes only a few minutes and is not too hard.
Learn to Sew: How to Sew a Zipper
You don’t have to be intimiated by how to sew a zipper! It’s not as hard as you think.
First of all, you need to buy a zipper. That’s pretty easy. There are different types. The kind I usually use is the Polyester but there are also metal and things. You are going to find them in the notions section of your store and they are going to be organized by color and length, so be sure to pay attention to what length of zipper you need. And generally, unless otherwise noted, get the polyester kind.
So, once you have your zipper, open it up. Now, on the inside, you are actually going to find instructions on how to insert a zipper. You will find 2 different ways. Centered or lapped application. What I am going to teach you today is a centered application. If you ever need to do lapped just remember that the instructions are there.
Next, find your zipper foot. It should look something like this:
Attach it to your machine. To do this, you are going to take off your presser foot (check your manual for how to do this on your machine, but it’s likely that there’s a little red button/spring on the back that you push and it pops off. Then you will put the zipper foot under there BUT you will need to either insert it to the left side or the right, NOT centered like a presser foot. See how it is on the right in this picture?