Technique: Easy way to put in a zip - a little tutorial

I was taught this method for putting in a zip by my mother, who, for most of her sewing life used an old hand-cranked Singer. It perhaps doesn't look as professional as an invisible zip, but it's so easy a beginner can do it, given a zipper foot to your machine. I've been sewing for over 50 years but I still think of myself as a beginner! Note that it doesn't really work for a zip fly, which should be assymetrical.

To find out how to put in a zip the easy way, read on!

If sewing in a zip on the back or front of a dress or top, especially for a child, I find it is often much easier to put the zip in almost as the first thing you do. In other words, you can put the zip into the centre back seam before sewing the back and front together. So that's my first tip. Here's the back and front of a dress that have now just been attached at the shoulders, AFTER the zip has been put in the back. (Not always possible, but it helps if you can do this.)

The second (my mother's trick) is actually to sew up the seam into which you will be inserting the zip. You could hand-baste it, but I find the machine much quicker. Use the longest stitch on your machine, and don't overstitch the beginning and end of the seam, because you will be unpicking some of it later. Ideally you would measure carefully, and figure out how far down the opening part of the zip will come. You could then change to a shorter stitch below that point so the rest of the seam is more firmly stitched. Press the seam open.

I also tend to finish the seam edges at this point as well, by zigzagging along the edge. You can do this before doing the seam. 

Next, switch to your zipper foot. Pin your almost closed zip with the teeth along the centre of the seam, and the zip pull facing into the seam. Make sure the top of the zip is below the neckline seam line. If you plan to put a button and loop, or hook and eye at the very top, you need to go down a little bit further to leave space for this. The reason I've left the zip just a little undone at the top is so that I can shift the zip pull up and down a bit, past the zipper foot.

I aim to try and go down one side and up the other. However, this can mean the zip pulls down against the material on one side, across the bottom, and up on the other side. Truthfully, it's probably better to go down both sides, taking the stitching across the bottom from one side, or both sides for extra strength. On the picture below, because I'm so lazy, I'm doing what I just suggested you shouldn't do. I've sewn down the side on your left, (which is up, in the picture) across the bottom, and now I'm sewing back to the neck on the right side (down, in the picture).  You can see the closed centre back seam behind the zip.

Your zipper foot should obviously be on the opposite side of the needle to the teeth of the zip. And don't stitch too close to the teeth, or you may find the zip pull will get caught on your stitches. At the same time, you don't want to be too close to the edge of the zip, or your stitching may miss going through the seam allowance, so the raw edge peeps out on the outside of the garment. There is sometimes a centre line down each half of the tape, which is a good place to stitch. There isn't a line on this zip, but I stuck to an imaginary line down the centre. 

However careful I am, though, as I'm stitching, I sometimes find it fiddly to get past the zip pull. So what I do when I'm approaching the zip pull, (with the needle down) is to raise the machine foot, ease the zip pull past it (so it's now already behind the machine foot), lower the machine foot again, and carry on.

Next, go along the seam with a seam ripper (you could do this with embroidery scissors if you don't have one, but careful not to clip the fabric) and open it up above the bottom of the zip.

This will give you lots of little bits of thread to pull out! But when you've done it, you'll have a nicely inserted zip

You'll then need to finish the top of your zip. With this dress, it had a lined bodice, so I was able to conceal the top of the zip within the lining when I sewed the two necklines together. I hand-sewed the lining to the zip. You could machine through it, but I'm only making children's clothes and none of the seams are very long, so I don't consider a bit of hand-sewing a hardship.

And here's the finished back zip. Easy peasy.

You can use the same method for a front zip, as I did here. This is a playsuit with a zip that opens down the front. There was no lining here, so the top of the zip was concealed in the neck binding. And this zip does have a little button and elsatic loop to hold the top neatly together. 

Rose likes that she can do the zip and button herself, because this is front-opening.