Zippers in sweaters.

Installing zippers in Children's sweaters is not as hard as it may seem and the sweaters look fantastic.  

What you need:

1.  Separating zipper,  I like the bright heavy plastic ones.  Measure the front band of your cardigan and make sure the zipper you purchase to not longer then your measurement.   (13" band buy a 12" zipper).

2. Thread - best to have a color matching your sweater yarn.

3. Straight pins- the longer quilt pins are very good for this job.

4. Grosgrain ribbon, for the finishing on the inside of the zipper.  Double the length of your zipper plus 5 " for length of ribbon needed.   This can be a decorative ribbon, but make sure that it is not wider the 1".  I'll show you how to add this in a future post.


Step 1
A. With a closed zipper, pin the zipper to the band.  The edge of the band should be a scant distance from the teeth of the zipper.  You do not want the zipper to catch.  
Test it by running the zipper up and down, it should do so easily.

B. You can now hand baste (a long running stitch) the zipper and band together so that the pins can be removed.

Step 2

A. Match the left and right band up so that the zipper will be centered up and down.  

notice the zipper teeth are showing and that's OK
You want the space for the zipper to pass through easily

.

In my blue sample I have decided to overlap the bands, so I will be pinning the second zipper inside further into where the band and sweater meet.  

Step 3
A. open the zipper.

B. fold the top and bottom of the zipper to the inside.

C.  hand stitch the zipper to each band. The hand stitches are made in the middle of the zipper band not close to the teeth.

The back stitch is a great secure stitch to use.
Backstitch guide link






D. notice the slip stitches around the folded end of zipper (above) and that when the seam is sewn, the edges of the band are not sewn close to the teeth of the zipper.   I pinned the edge over on this completely sewn band.   The zipper head must have room to move up and down.

Center seamed zipper

Finished sweater.
 That's a cross stitch ballet slipper... directions to follow. in a future post..

FINISHING-  Adding the grosgrain ribbon and finishing the sweater........ To Be Continued

Zippers and sweaters

i have been knitting for over 50 years (wow!!!) and in all those years never used a zipper in my knitting work...Was it fear ..I don't know?   I certainly have experience sewing with zippers, invisible, separating, into clothing, upolstery, and bags...but never into a knit.  
So two weeks ago I decided that my latest cardigan needed a zipper.     And guess what,  it wasn't that difficult.  Tutorial to follow: