Yesterday I showed how to create a bed for a dog kennel. Today I’ll show you how to sew in a zipper. I cut some pieces of fabric and drew on them to better show how to sew the central zipper in.

-To start, mark where the zipper will go because before and after the zipper a seam stitch will be sewn and where the zipper will go, I’ll do a basting stitch, or the longest stitch on my machine.

-Use pins or fabric chalk to mark the fabric. Don’t use a marker like I did, I just wanted to clearly show where to mark.

mark fabric

where to baste

– Pin the fabric together and baste where the zipper goes and continue with the seam stitch before and after the zipper, backstitching when I stitch the stitch length, I’m using a 5/8inch seam.

differences in stitches

-Then iron the seam open.

iron seam

– Then pin the zipper, face down, teeth to the seam. I placed the pins in the wrong direction. So I had to switch them so I could easily remove them as I was stitching.

pin zipper over seam

– Using a basting stitch, longest stitch on my machine, I place the edge of my zipper foot directly in the middle of the teeth and stitch, when I need to turn, I leave the needle in the fabric, lift the foot, and turn the fabric to the direction, put the foot down and begin to stitch again. I use a basting stitch to tack the zipper to the fabric and I don’t have to worry about removing pins as I sew.

– When I get to the zipper head, I make sure the needle is in the fabric, lift the zipper foot and push the zipper head past the foot.

zipper foot up, and push the zipper head past the foot

– Once the zipper head is out of the way, put the foot down, and continue stitching.

zipper foot down and continue stitching

-After the basting, stitch around the zipper with a smaller stitch size, just outside the basting stitch. Using the same technique at the corners and the zipper head.

-Once the stitching is complete, remove the basting stitch around the zipper and in the middle of the zipper.

remove basting stitch

– The zipper is complete! The zipper has been successfully installed. It does take practice but it’s not as intimidating as it first appears.

zipper complete

finished

Happy Sewing!