Thursday, March 3, 2011

Tutorial Review: Invisible Zipper Tutorial from Clever Nesting

This post will be a review of the Invisible Zipper Tutorial from Clever Nesting.  This tutorial was used as a sub-tutorial of the Party Skirt Tutorial from Creative Spaces.  So if you wanted to make that skirt, you might be interested to see how this tutorial worked out.


Accuracy: ?
Clarity of Directions: 2
Helpfulness of Pictures: 2
Difficulty: 9
Overall Rating: 2

Details:

First and main thing I have to say about this tutorial?  The pictures were really, really bad.  They weren't big enough to see.  You couldn't click to enlarge.  And, I mean, what is this?


What sucked about the pictures sucking is that placement on an invisible zipper is really important in order to get it to come out right.  At different points, I couldn't tell if the zipper was facing upward or downward or if the zipper's teeth were facing inward or outward.
While trying to complete this tutorial, I ended up ripping out my zipper four separate times, crying and threatening to throw my sewing machine out the window.  I had to step away from the project for about an hour just to calm down enough to continue after the fourth round with the seam ripper.

So how did I eventually get an invisible zipper in my pink party skirt, you ask?  Well, I consulted the directions on the zipper's packaging (failed), googled it (failed) and ultimately called my mom (love her!).  I would not recommend this tutorial to you unless maybe you like making yourself cry.

Of course, to be fair, maybe I just couldn't figure it out because I'm really new at sewing.  So, if you want to give it a try and let me know if my review is fair, feel free to do it.  And shoot me an email if you think I'm wrong!  :)  mseaber (at) gmail (dot) com.  

So if you just have to have an invisible zipper tutorial, and I can't recommend this one to you, here's what I suggest you try.  Over at Craftiness is Not Optional (a sewing blog I frequent), the author Jess recently did a sew along for the Charlotte Dress.  In part five, she inserts an invisible zipper.  You might want to give that one a try, although I haven't tried it myself yet.

P.S. If you're wondering why there's a question mark for the accuracy rating on this tutorial, it's because I couldn't understand what was going on enough in the tutorial to tell if it was accurate or not.  Feel free to take from that what you want and assign your own rating.

4 comments:

  1. To answer your question, it's an iron on a zipper. But that doesn't mean it makes sense. I've never ironed a zipper flat before.

    Invisible zippers are really hard to do correctly. I've done them before and they are always a frustration for me, even though I've been sewing for years. I read through the tutorial and it makes perfect sense to me, but then again, I already know what each step means.

    This tutorial is definitely not for beginners, but I think once you sew some more and go back to read it, you won't find it so confusing.

    It makes me feel better to know I'm not the only person to cry while sewing. I used to yell at my mom's machine, threatening to throw it in the dump unless it behaved. I am so glad I have my own nice new one. :)

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  2. Ohhh. I can totally see the iron now. Before I thought it was part of the zipper because of the brown edges. Haha!

    And I thought that might be the case with the tutorial. Of course, I assume people who are using it probably don't know how to sew an invisible zipper.

    You should try it and see if you can get through it! Maybe then I can re-score it. I felt almost guilty saying bad things about it.

    And, yes, I cry while sewing sometimes. But I cry sometimes during most things...I cry a lot. Lol.

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  3. Thats a zipper? Looks like twill tape.

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Your comments brighten my day, so comment away! (Hey, that rhymes!) As always, thanks for reading. :)

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