I ran into a little bit of trouble last week making the zipper pouch from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. Well, not so much trouble as not understanding the instructions. When I posted a question on the Bend-the-Rules Sewing Flickr Group, someone sent me a link to a different method for putting in zippers. Hmmm... Then I did some poking around, and I found yet another method. So I decided that I would try them all, so that you don't have to.
Method #1: Bend-the-Rules Sewing book by Amy Karol
With this method, you make the outside of the pouch (with the zipper) and the lining as though they are separate bags, and then handsew the lining into the bag. I was a little confused about whether to shorten the zipper before I sewed it into the fabric, but that was easy to figure out - and Amy Karol confirmed on the flickr group - shorten first, then sew.
I did run into another roadblock, however. Here's my second post to the Bend-the-Rules Sewing Flickr Group:
"Hi again! OK, I'm trying to follow the instructions for the zip pouch, but I'm confused... When I get to step 6, I start with the outer pouch turned inside-out and the lining right-side-out. Then it says to insert the lining into the zip pouch and sew it together. But then how would I turn it around so it's all the right way again? It seems to me that it should be the other way around - the zip pouch should go inside the lining, wrong sides together - so that when I turn it inside-out again, it will have the outer fabric on the outside where it's supposed to be. Am I crazy?"
Some kind person responded and assured me that it would make sense when I tried it, and to remember to leave an opening for turning. It still didn't make sense in my mind, but I figured I should give the clearly more experienced person the benefit of the doubt - though not so much as to actually do all the work of handsewing. Instead, I pinned the lining (right-side-out) into the bag (inside-out) to simulate sewing, and turned it through one the gaps between the pins, to see how it would work. And... it doesn't.
Therefore, I did it the other way, like in my question: the zip pouch inside the lining, wrong sides together. And it worked... sort of:
My handsewing was pretty lumpy, and the lining didn't seem to fit well inside the bag when I turned everything around, it bunched up at the edges. So I did a bit of reasoning, and I figured that if the lining needs to fit inside the outer bag, it should probably be slightly less wide than the outer bag. Right? So I made a second bag, and when I cut out the lining pieces, I subtracted 1/4" from the width. Then I again put the outer bag inside the lining, wrong sides together, and handsewed it, more carefully and with shorter stitches, ending up with this:
Success! My handsewing looks good and my bag is flat. (I used the How to Finish Stuffed Animals tutorial from Wendi Gratz for my handsewing - so useful - best tutorial ever.) Only one problem - the zipper wouldn't close - the lining fabric is too close to the zipper teeth. Aargh.
At this point, my poor brain finally wrapped itself around this whole sewing-in-the-lining thing. All you have to do is leave the components the way they actually go, outer bag right-side-out, lining right-side-in, put them together, and sew. At last I managed to create this the fabric flower is from this tutorial):
Method #2: Photo Tutorial from Twelve 22
This method is basically for people who don't want to do any handsewing. You sew both the outer and lining fabrics to the zipper, and then sew everything together. It is definitely faster, and it came out ok, but not as nice as the handsewing method from the book. The zipper makes it awkward to sew up the pouch and keep everything from shifting around a little. Of course, you also get visible stitching along the top edge of the lining:
And, as you can see, both corners got sewn into the pouch, so they are both slanted:
I thought I might've done something wrong, but I checked the photo from the tutorial and it looks like that too. So I'd say this is fine if you just want to whip up some zipper pouches and not be too anal about them - it's only a zipper pouch, after all. But if you want to take the time to make it perfect, go with Method #1. But whatever you do, don't use...
Method #3: Video Tutorial from Threadbanger
OK, maybe that sounds a little unnecessarily harsh. This is actually a great tutorial for this method (it starts about 3 minutes into the video, if you don't want to watch the whole thing), which is how you make zippers in skirts and other clothing. But it's a lot of work for a zipper pouch, though a necessary skill that clearly requires some practice!
The basic technique is to baste a seam into your fabric, press it open, then baste the zipper to that, flip it over (so now the zipper is hidden underneath the seamline), and sew over the fabric. That way, from the outside, the fabric totally hides the zipper. Nice!
My biggest mistake, I think, was in not basting the zipper down. In the video, they use "basting glue," which I didn't have, and I didn't want to use regular glue on my fabric. So by the time I had sewn down one side, the zipper had shifted so it wasn't centered on the seam anymore. Ugh.
But my biggest problem, and one that I have yet to solve, is sewing around the zipper tab. I don't know if all machines are like this, but in mine, to get the zipper foot past the tab, you have to stop sewing, lift the zipper foot, and ease the tab underneath it until it's behind the presser foot. Then you can continue sewing. With the zipper hidden under the fabric, though, it's hard to see where to stop, and hard to push the zipper tab along when you do. So even though I tried it two or three times, I kept sewing next to the zipper tab, which causes everything to go all wonky, the fabric gets pulled, the seam is crooked, and it's impossible to get the zipper centered again:
If anyone has any advice about this, please let me know, because none of the instructions I've seen address this issue. Maybe other machines don't have this problem. But I would like to make skirts, maybe soon, and I will need to be able to sew zippers into them.