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It’s Day Three of National Sewing Month! Too see the daily blog posts, projects of the day, and more National Sewing Month details, click here.
Hello, I’m Deby from So Sew Easy. I’m fairly new to sewing and learning new techniques all the time, so I was delighted to be asked to share with you as part of the National Sewing Month series.
On my blog, I mostly sew clothes for myself and one of the sewing techniques that took me a while to master was sewing an invisible zipper. However hard I tried to work it out, more often than not I would end up putting either one or even both sides in the wrong way. But now that I have this mastered, the invisible zipper has become one of my favorite techniques because it is so easy to do, yet provides such a high level of finish.
Follow through as I show you how I sew an invisible zipper in this video tutorial.
Did you wonder what the sound was in the background? Well, I’m lucky enough to live in the glorious Cayman Islands, and that was the sound of the Caribbean Sea lapping at the beach outside my sewing room window!
If you prefer a photo tutorial, you can find a written step by step with photos over on the site as part of the beginners Sew A Skirt series at so-sew-easy.com. Now you have the zipper sorted, you might want to follow along the tutorial series and sew a custom-fit lined skirt.
Thanks for watching, I hope you found this useful and picked up some tips, and won’t keep sewing in your zippers the wrong way round like I did!
And thank you to the FaveCrafts Blog for having me over today to say hello.
Authored by: Deby at So Sew Easy
What is the hardest sewing technique you’ve ever had to learn?
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The hardest thing I ever had to learn was how to put a zipper in a dress.
The hardest thing is trying to work out the correct order when putting an invisible zipper into a lined dress with a waist seam. If you want to do it all by machine, you need an engineering degree and a masters in origami !
The hardest technique I learned was attaching a puffed sleeve to a bodice…with shoulder pad stuffing in both the sleeve and the bodice.
So far, the french seam. So much ironing and cuttin, but the results are bewlautiful.
I needed this tutorial today as Im sewing an invisable zipper in a dress for the first time today!
The hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do was put a whole lining in a dress….it was like making 2 dresses back to back…just couldn’t get my mind around the concept of HOW to pull it off.
Thank GOD for my Aunt Sue who worked in a sewing factory for years. She went through it step by step with me. I still have issues with it, though I can hash it out now.
Marilyn in MS
P.S. Caribbean in your back yard? Color me green with envy!!!!
So far for me is a button hole!! I can’t get the function to work properly on my machine and I know it is user error but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I am doing wrong!!
The hardest lesson I ever had was when I was a pre-teen taking my first sewing lesson. They had us making t-shirts with stretch knit fabric and I picked one with stripes that I had to match up!
The hardest project I ever completed was the pleated front trousers we were required to make in a tailoring class I had in high school! Oh, the unsewing I did!
The hardest thing for me was a zipper.
It’s a toss-up between fusible vinyl and zippers. I even combined the two once and it just didn’t come out how I wanted. I need more practice!
The hardest thing I did was to put in a fly front zipper on a pair of trousers. To this day I have some problems with this
My worst experience was handsewing a buttonhole at school when I brought up my work to the nun teaching us Mother Peter who was sitting on a high stool at the top of the class, she wasn’t to happy with it and gave me a right kick in the shin. It is a wonder I ever managed to sew anything again.
Hardest and still is, is putting a jetted flap pocket into a jacket.
buttonholes are my downfall
I think the hardest was in the very beginning – I had a difficult time getting the hang of the speed, either using a knee control or foot control. I was also only about ten or eleven years old 🙂
I have a terrible time with a jeans-style zipper.
Josh, there are a lot of hard areas for me, but the lining for dresses or jackets. And collars are hard too
Typo gosh lol
The hardest thing to learn was putting in sleeves so they look good.
My hardest learning technique was learning how to sew a pocket on front of a dress.
The hardest thing for me is sewing over elastic. I always end up just safety pinning the elastic closed in waistbands.
A welted pocket in a man’s vest—I think that’s the correct term!
I think the hardest thing for me was mastering zippers. During Home Ec in high school the second zipper every went in beautifully, but I had to pull it out because I had put it in wrong side out! UGH!!!
It’s been a long time since I’ve sewn an invisible zipper. Thanks for the tips, Deby!!! The hardest thing I’ve ever sewn was a fully lined suit. With a little help from my mother, I managed it in the end.
It was difficult for me to figure out how to make a lined bag.
I remember trying to figure out some pleats on a hat pattern when I was 12. Took me hours!
The hardest sewing problem I have is making a professional looking button hole.
The hardest thing I have tried to do is a zipper; I still avoid them at ALL costs!
The hardest sewing technique I’ve been learning (and I’m still learning) is free motion quilting. Thanks for the giveaway!
My hardest sewing technique is modifying a pattern to fit a busy person. Help!!
Typo: should say busty person.
I’ve never tried a zipper! So far my nemisis is silky fabrics with a patterns that need to be lined up. I gave up on a beautiful dress for my daughter because I could not stop the fabric from slipping and messing with the pattern!
It’s been quite a while, but I remember struggling to put collars on jackets. I finally got it and have made quite a few jackets for myself since then.
Yes putting an invisible zipper in a lined satin dress was the hardest thing i ever learned. Had to take it out and redo it three times before I got it right. But my daughter looked beautiful at her Hawaii beach wedding.
The hardest thing to learn is putting a zipper in when sewing.
Buttonholes, marking and then making them well on blouses or jackets with several of them in a row is right ‘up there’ with invisible zippers, hems and shaping of shoulders on a jacket using the hand techniques specified for ‘tailoring’ it.
I’ve never put in an invisible zipper before. I can do a mean lapped zipper though. Guess I need to work on that one.
I think putting in a zipper – and getting it straight – using machines from the 60’s was the hardest technique I have learned.
Invisible zippers are intimidating. I finally tried it a few months ago. The hardest thing about putting in an invisible zipper was finding and buying the correct invisible zipper foot. I had to look long and hard on the internet to find the one I needed. Where I live nothing is available.
Thanks for all the great information.
OH, and please enter me to win a prize.
I would have to say the hardest sewing technique for me so far are the french seams. I have done a few but not after reading and re-reading the instructions again and again.
my hardest thing was to put in zipper that looked good.
Thanks for the tutorial. It helped
The hardest thing I find is to fit a collar on a shirt or jacket, it always ends up with one side right and the other too far. the other was to fit a zipper that looked smooth when on. Thanks for tutorial, I really needed that.
The hardest thing for me is the different styles of pockets ! I`m sewing a jacket now ,but I`m stumped with the pockets! The directions does not make any sense to me. Could someone please help?