Saturday, February 2, 2013

Double Triple Zip Along, and 2 Color Zipper Tutorial


With my Wildlife Quilt all done and being used every night, I was able to get not 1, but 2 of these triple zip pouches finished for Debbie's of "A Quilter's Table" Triple Zip Along!
As much fun as I had sewing these up, I had even more fun playing around with my zippers (I mentioned that I love zippers, right?).  I haven't seen a "tutorial" about what I did, so here it is. 

You can really change up the look of your zippers by first taking them apart. It's important to HAVE THE SAME BRAND OF ZIPPERS before you do this.  One of my thrift store zippers was packed in a different brand of zipper packaging, and when I tried it they curled up and wouldn't lie flat.

You also need to start with zippers that are bigger than you want in the end, as they may not quite match up lenghth-wise in the end.

First, you cut the ends off of the zippers.

Unzip them entirely.  Mix and match how you want them.  You can use 2 different colors (this would be great for sports or school colors). You can put on a different colored pull.

Put the zipper slide or pull first on one side of the tape.  I added safety pins to give me a "handle" to grab onto.  You could also use pieces of masking tape on the sides, or just try with nothing... sometimes they go together smoothly.

Then thread the other side of the tape onto the pull, as you would a jacket, and pull.  This is a bit tricky, as they won't fit together at first.  If it's really stubborn, you can cut off a few of the bottom teeth on one side first.

From here, you can proceed to sew with them as you would any other zipper.  If you won't be using them right away, you may want to sew across the bottom to prevent the zipper from separating.

7 comments:

  1. oh my gosh! I have never ever seen this done, and I missed in in your flickr pics! PLEASE share this in the "tips" thread of the Triple-Zip Along...I'm sharing on AQT's fb page - ok? You are amazing!

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  2. Oh, cool! I asked a question about your pulls on Flickr, but I see now how you did that. Neat!

    Have you ever tried Pam Damour's zippers? Hers are meant to be separated, and the pulls don't even come on the zippers. You could do this with those mighty easily! They are pretty easy to get back together, too. They are zippers by the yard. How fun. I would not have thought of doing this!

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  3. Thanks for the awesome idea. May have to dabble in this a bit. I especially love the switched zipper pulls.

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  4. What an awesome thought. I've done 6-7 triple zips but now I have a reason to try another.

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