Monday, March 14, 2011

Tutorial: Attaching Zipper to Pillow

Adding a Zipper to a Pillow:

IMG_5169

With a little bit of practice, attaching a zipper to a pillow could be a pretty fast process. I usually use 'invisible' zippers that are nicely tucked in once attached, so it's barely visible once the pillow is completed. Zippers keeps the pillow nicely enclosed without the worry of a flap or other enclosure types.

Here's my method for attachment a zipper to a pillow top:
Use this method after pillow top is completed (quilting etc).  The pillow bottom should be of the same dimensions.
  1. Face pillow top and pillow bottom, right side together (wrong side facing out).  
  2. Stitch long stitches (I use setting 5 on the sewing machine) with 1/3" seam allowance against one side 
  3. Press open the seam
  4. IMG_5149
  5. Lay the pressed seam open and move the pillow top and bottom to the left side
  6. Pin down right side of the zipper and attach to the open right side seam made in the previous step and sew down as closely as possible to the zipper teeth.  If the zipper grip is in the way, go ahead and unzip to move it out of the way.  Double stitch zipper to make sure it's on extra tight :).
  7. IMG_5157
  8. Move the pillow top and bottom to the right side of the open seam, and attach the left side of the zipper to the left side of the open seam.  Double sew as closely to the zipper teeth as possible.
  9. Once zipper is securely sewn on both seams open up the pillow top and bottom and face right side up.  
  10. Take a seam ripper and remove the stitches about an inch from each end where the zipper is.
  11. IMG_5158IMG_5160
  12. Fold the pillow top and bottom back on top of each other with wrong sides together, and stitch back and forth on each end of the zipper.  This will secure each the ends of the zipper to the pillow top and bottom.
That's it :).  It may seem a little complicated - haha at least to me when I first tried this, but after a couple of trial and errors I finally got the hang out it...and so will you.  I add zippers to most of my pillows.  Makes for super easy cleaning and even with the roughest of play the pillow cover stays secure :).

-Q

3 comments:

Miss K @ kraftingwithk said...

I love where you put the zipper. I've been doing "the pocket" method but I probably should venture out. My zipper skills are getting better each day!

Camille said...

Bookmarking this and coming back for my next pillow. Zippers scare the daylights out of me! Thanks for the tips!

Cute pillow, btw. :-)

j.goop said...

this is great! will definitely be using it sometime

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