Fear of Zippers

In the world of sewing I have a couple of techniques I tend to avoid at all costs. One is buttonholes, which is crazy since both my new machine and my old one practically made the darn things for you. Nevertheless, it's a hold over from when I was learning to sew many years ago and had less than success with the results.

The other technique is putting in zippers. It is probably the main reason I do not do any garment sewing - unless you count Halloween costumes that of course conveniently did not have buttonholes or zippers. I have made many a decorative pillow for our home but have either sewed the darn thing shut hoping I'd never have to wash them or made an opening in the back so I could slip in the inner form.

Last weekend I started prepping for my turn at hosting book club (tonight). We live in a small space (about 1800 sq.ft.) with 3 teenagers (two of which are now taller than I am) that are all involved in sports. Add to that the recent purchase of a sewing machine, which has led to multiple projects, which of course means numerous piles, I was feeling like I needed some sort of "Organize This!" intervention.

My family walked downstairs early one morning to see feathers pretty much everywhere. No, I had not had a pillow fight to vent frustrations ... although that sounds pretty good at the moment. What I had done was to take off the five pillow covers from our sofa (which involved a seam ripper) to hand wash them before my guests arrived. I had a week, surely I would be able to knock this project off in a day (or so). I discovered that the feather pillowforms I had purchased a number of years ago were "leaking" feathers. No seams had come apart but the feathers were working their way through the pillow form fabric. When I pulled the pillows out of their covers it looked like I'd been plucking chickens in our living room. Bummer, this was not going to be a quick fix.

Knowing that my husband has allergies, I set off on Tuesday to Swany's with two of my friends and sewingmates, in search of pillowcase fabric - a weave so tight no feathers would break through. No luck. But what we did find were more projects. Precisionsewer picked up a cute little cosmetic bag and said "Oh, will you teach us to make these?"

Before thinking I said, "I don't do zippers."

The disappointing look on her face was all I needed to start back-peddling fast.

"Okay, sure, let's try. I'll have to reteach myself how to put in zippers though."

I left with materials for one cosmetic bag - including a zipper - but no fabric for the pillows.

Once back on base I decided to try using bed pillow allergy covers. I left the home store here on base with five, came home rotary cut off the bottoms and stitched them up. Step one solved. But now I needed to either sew back up the old covers or ... make new ones. You know where I went.

Back out to another store for five zippers. I pulled out my obi and yukata fabric. Ripped one Japanese yukata apart - and started sewing. I had hoped to post something like "5 pillows in 5 hours" but perhaps that was a bit ambitious. Here I am hours before hosting book club - one week later - and I just finished the last of five pillows. With zippers.

Minutes later I whipped out the cosmetic bag. A very long way of going about making my third bag of seven but I learned and relearned a lot. My sewingmates are pushing my sewing skills, which is a good thing indeed. New pillows on our sofa and a cute little bag leaves me of course ... inspired.