Tutorial Review: Charlotte dress part 5: the invisible zipper

Remember a few days ago when I almost jumped in front of a bus because I couldn't figure out that invisible zipper tutorial?  Well, today I decided to try a different invisible zipper tutorial to see if it went any better.  The tutorial I decided to use was The Charlotte Dress Part 5: The Invisible Zipper from Craftiness is Not Optional.

Just to clarify, I did not actually make the Charlotte dress.  The only part of this tutorial I'm reviewing is how to insert the invisible zipper, which I inserted into another party skirt because I just loved how the first one turned out.

 

Okay.  Ready?  Let's check out the zipper.  Here's how my invisible zipper turned out with the Charlotte Dress tutorial:

To compare, here's how my invisible zipper turned out with the tutorial from Clever Nesting:

Much better this time than last, huh?  I was proud.  So let's get on with the review.

Accuracy: 9

Clarity of Directions: 8.5

Helpfulness of Pictures: 8.5
Difficulty: 7

Time: 30 min.

Overall Rating: 8.5

Recommended 

Details:

This tutorial was so, so much easier to understand than the one I tried last week.  To be fair, I had never tried to sew an invisible zipper before last week, so I can't say for sure that the tutorial was as terrible as I felt like it was or if it was just because I'd never sewn one before and had no idea where to even start.  But, on my second try with the Charlotte Dress tutorial, I didn't even have to rip out any seams!  And the zipper is totally invisible.  Hurrah!

The instructions were pretty clear and the pictures illustrated the verbal steps quite well.  The only hairy part (the reason why I took off some points on the clarity of directions and on the helpfulness of pictures) was sewing down the second side of the zipper.  The verbal directions here were a little mucked up, and the picture was cut off at the bottom so that I couldn't see the whole zipper and figure out quite what I was supposed to be doing.  I really didn't want to rip out any seams this time, though, so I pinned the zipper in place and kept trying to zip it up until I got it pinned in the right place.  This actually took three tries, which means if I had have sewn it down before checking maybe I would have hated this tutorial as much as the last one.  Who knows?

So, my tips on invisible zippers, then?  Maybe it's not as much about the tutorial as I think it is.  The key, in my opinion, is trying to zip the zipper once you have the second side pinned before you actually sew it!  That way you can see right away if you have it placed right or not and avoid ripping it out four times and wanting to shoot yourself. :)

Soo...I guess that's all I've got for ya right now.  Happy sewing and see you next time! :)

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.