If thinking about how to sew the zipper gives you hives, this blog post is for you! I'll show you the easy process of how to sew the zipper on to your Maggie Jacket. The pattern instructions are coming with great diagrams, but it is great to see some clear pictures of the process.
Zipper tip: The zipper end should not have a hard zippertape at the bottom, it should be flipped easily! But more about that below!
We will start placing the zipper. Make sure the body of the garment jacket is inside out, with wrong side up. Place the center front edges of the jacket next to each other so that the wrong side of the fabric is facing up.
With the wrong side of the fabric facing up, measure 3/4" up from the bottom edge of the jacket along the edge and mark with a horizontal line for the zipper position.
Place the zipper portion housing the slider on the left front panel, ¼" away from the edge of
the jacket with the zipper’s right side facing up, making sure the zipper teeth are 3/4" away
from the edge.
There's a couple things to notice here:
*Both wrong sides of the jacket and wrong sides of the zipper should be touching.
*The zipper puller is facing UP.
Align the bottom of the zipper to the horizontal mark of the jacket as shown. Insert pins through the zipper tape and jacket edge, with tape placement ¼" away from the edge.
Repeat this at the other edge of the jacket (no pull) such that when both edges are placed next to each other, both horizontal lines align perfectly.
Before stitching the zipper, the excess zipper-tape at the top has to be folded away for a clean finish. Fold the excess zipper tape towards the edge of the jacket and insert a pin horizontally to hold this fold in place. (the excess zipper tape will be trimmed away once the zipper is stitched).
Stitch the zipper at the zipper tape edge with loose stitches (set it to the maximum length on your machine). When sewing the zipper tape with the zipper puller, lift up the presser foot so you can move the zipper puller out of the way when you reach it!
Important: Stitch the zipper with very loose stitches that can easily be removed later on.
Stitch the binding at all (right side) edges of the jacket, including the mitered corners, the curved side hem. Make sure to join the binding ends.
Once the binding is attached to all (right side) edges of the jacket and the binding ends are
joined, pin the binding towards the wrong side of the jacket.
Stitch in the ditch (at right side jacket) to finish the binding.
Once the complete binding has been finished, flip the zipper towards the center front and stitch it down (that is why the zipper should not have a hard plastic bottom end). This will be stitched again on the right side jacket, stitch again in the ditch for an invisible seam.
Comment: You might use the zipper foot this time depending on the strength of your sewing machine to be able to sew bulky seams.
Important: once the zipper is inserted with the binding, you can remove the initial visible loose stitch threads.
And that is how to sew the zipper on your Maggie Jacket. The zipper is ready, enjoy your quilted jacket.
I hope this blog post is of help! If you still have questions, give me a mail HERE.
If you want to purchase the Maggie Jacket pattern, you can do that HERE.
