Tutorial: How to shorten a zipper

Last week while working on replacing a zipper on a skirt for a girl that I work with, I made a startling realization....

The zipper that I had bought for said skirt was too long. Like, 2 inches too long.

Now this may not be a startling realization to some, but for me, it was horrifying. My brain went into overdrive thinking about where I left the receipt and what store did I buy it from?

Some slightly more intelligent part of my brain recalled my grandma mentioning that she had shortened a zipper that she'd bought a few weeks ago. This being about 10pm that night, I decided it would be in poor taste to call my poor, sweet grandma asking about zippers so to Google I ran.

I found a couple of super easy tutorials on youtube and was able to piece together a suitable method:

First: Measure youre opening to see how long the zipper needs to be (remember, do not cut it at the end of your opening or it will be too short. I made mine about an inch below to give some wiggle room).
Please pardon my suck-y pictures...

Yeah, WAY too long (thats what she said.... sorry couldnt help myself)

Second: Take a straight needle and matching color thread and make a simple whip stitch (going in from one side of the zipper, over the zipper, and down the other side)

Up and over

Third: continue doing this over and over and over until you have a little mass of stitches. This is the new "stopper" for the zipper pull. I also put a dab of hot glue over the stitches for good measure.



My lovely new "stopper" (before the hot glue)



Slightly better picture. You can see the stitches.

Finally: Snip off the excess beneath the new "stopper" and sew into your garment!



All done!

Thats it! After working myself into a frenzy, it took me about 15 minutes from start to finish to fix. 

 

Sometimes the easiest methods are the best.

 

Love

GG

One A Day: 1/25/11 Little Felt Owl

Because of my new-found love of all things Owl (and especially retro-looking owls), I decided last night to make myself a little felt-y owl to use as an accessory.

Heres the little guy!

I used some left over felt for the body, eyes and beak, and an old pair of pants that I didnt wear to make the wings. Isnt he CUTE?!

Hes about 2 inches wide, perfect size for a hair clip!

I have a feeling i'll be making more of these little guys in different colors....

I am really happy with how he turned out, and it only took me about 20 min to cut and stitch him together (I was pausing every now and again to do some homework too).

How are you doing with your "One a Day"?

~~Love~~

~~GG~~

P.S.- If you see anything (origional) that I've made, and are interested in a tutorial or purchasing an already made product, send me an email, comment on my most recent post, or post a message to my Facebook!

Tutorial: A Helmet for Logan

My best friend of 22 years (or my "bestest of all best friends" as we call each other) has a beautiful little boy who turned 1 last week. I knew that I wanted to make him a little something special (to go along with the mountains of toys I knew he was going to get!).

His father is from Iceland, and we joke about him being a Viking, so I decided that I was going to make little Logan a Viking helmet, right down to the horns!

I decided to make it out of felt, because its not only very soft, but holds its shape well and is pretty easy to sew. I started with a sheet of steel gray, a sheet of white, and a sheet of a mottled brown that looked a little like wood.

I rounded the edges of the gray, making the straight edge approx. 10 inches wide (which makes a total of 20" for the hat. I measured this on my 2 yr olds head, so its a bit big, but he'll grow into it).

Tutorial: Learned something new!- Blind Hem

I got to spend some time Sunday with my mentor/sewing inspiration/all around coolest lady ever, my grandma. I had brought my bag of sewing projects (things I was fixing/altering for my "paying" customers lol) so I could get her advice on a certain pair of pants that were giving me some trouble. So she jumps on her (no lie) 50 year old singer sewing machine that still works like a dream, and proceeds to show me something called a blind hem. I'd seen the stitch on my machine before and had no clue what it did or what it was for (on the machine, it looks something like this: __/\__/\__). Once she showed me how to use it, it was a little bit of an "oh crap" moment for me. I'd seen her do stitches like that on my pants before, but never knew how she'd done it (I thought it was some sort of grandma magic).