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The Colette Diaries – Ginger {Week 4}

This post is part of my Colette Diaries series. Feel free to check out my original Colette Diaries post for schedule and previous posts!

As promised, today I’ll give you a little sneak peak at my finished Ginger skirt…pretty snazzy, eh? I really love it. I want one in red, one in black…you get the idea!


Today, I’m going to talk about how I installed the invisible zipper in my skirt. I used the invisible zipper tutorial on the Colette website. I know sometimes people are afraid of zippers, and invisible zippers especially. But once you’ve sewn one or two zippers, there really is nothing to be afraid of. I used the regular zipper foot attachment on my sewing machine (I don’t have an invisible zipper foot); I’ve installed several invisible zippers and found that it works just fine.

I started out by placing my zipper right side down and ironing the coils flat. This will help make installation a breeze.

 

Next, I took the fabric from my skirt. There are 2 edges to the skirt where the zipper will be attached. You can probably see from my picture, but since my fabric is decor weight and a bit heavier, I decided to pink the edges rather than finish them with a serger or a regular zig-zag stitch. I placed the zipper right side down, and lined up the edge of the tape with the pinked edge of my fabric. The top of the zipper tape should be even with the top edge of the waistband. Then I sewed down to the ‘dots’ that I marked on my fabric, as specified in the pattern.

I repeated this for the other side of the zipper. I didn’t use pins and instead just sewed a bit more slowly. For me personally, it’s easier for me to keep the zipper tape flat and avoid puckers if I don’t use pins (and especially since this was a shorter zipper, it was fine). After both edges of the zipper were sewn, I stitched the back of the skirt closed below the zipper.

Not too hard! If you are nervous about working with zippers, why not try an easy zipper project first? My Sewing Back-To-School series begins on my blog next week – 30 days of beginner-friendly sewing tutorials – and one of the posts will be about sewing with a zipper!

One more week of work on the Ginger skirt, and then the following week I will have my full pattern review! I can’t wait to tell you all that I’ve learned, and get to work on the next Colette project!

6 thoughts on “The Colette Diaries – Ginger {Week 4}

  1. LOVE it!!! Your fabric is beautiful and that skirt is so flattering!

  2. Kristy says:

    That turned out great!!!

  3. Sara, I love it! It turned out great, and looks great on you too. Nicely done!

  4. Kim says:

    What can I say…perfect as usual! You are like the Mary Poppins of the sewing world!!!!!!

  5. Katy Cameron says:

    Love how it turned out, especially the piping

  6. GLV says:

    Hi ! I see that you have cut only one ppiece of fabric for the front of the skirt. I want to do that too but I am wondering how to manage it. The cutline of the front piece is not straigth where there supposed to be the center sewing. It is straight from the bottom and then shift a little ease on the belly. Also what about the front center sewing seam alowance ?

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