zipped!

The other day I was doing my morning daily online reading routine, and  this-awesome-picture appeared.

Outsapop.com is a great source of inspiration, and this is probably still an understatement.

Although I have a long 'to do list' in my craft department, these pants went immediately to #1 position.


***update: Outsapop has mentioned this tutorial in her post!*** 

What I had:

- a pair of blue cropped pants that were begging to be zipped up a notch

- thread and a sewing machine and the very much needed "zipper foot"

- a seam ripper

- pliers and scissors

- fray check

What I bought:

- 11 blue metal zippers 

I found a good deal in my neighborhood fabric store, so I ended up buying 17 extra long zippers and a bunch of -something that looks like a flat tiny metal stud- to block the zipper from running off.

Although this means extra work by cutting off zippers and removing metal teeth, it also means that I'll have a lot of extra zipper parts for future projects... stay tuned!

I ended with these sizes: 
2 x 6", 2 x 8", 2 x 9", 2 x 12", 2 x 18", 1 x 19" 

How to -->doityourself<-- :

- using the seam ripper, open up the seam of your pants, (either the outside or the inside one) that doesn't have the external double seam. (mine don't have double seam on either side, so I decided to open the outside one, which will be easier to sew on the upper side of the pants)

- open the legs of your pants and iron it, so you have a nice flat surface to work on
- pin your zippers over the fabric, in random vertical order, some zip up, some zip down.

- although I don't like hate doing the basting, I figured out that it would be safer to bast all these zippers onto the pants, just to play on the safe side, since they have to be all nice and straight. 

- bast some more and try your pants on: to see how you like it and  if the zippers are going exactly where you want.

- start sewing these beauties on your pants using the zipper foot on your machine.
- I sewed with a medium (3) zigzag stitch on the external part of the ribbon, so the zipper would lay nice and flat without "flapping" out.

- sew back the legs of your pants (I opted to sew starting from the waist down to make sure the fabric wouldn't move and be uneven).

- ask me what are my fave for the summer to come? ;)

inspiration&realisation

Options

- if you want you can slash the fabric under your zippers: this extra operation will require that you serger or zigzag the slashed parts to prevent fraying (Although by looking at the picture, it looks like some of the zippers are open and the fabric underneath is intact)

- you can do just the front of your legs or go for the total effect 

One piece of practical advise:

You might not use these pants if you're planning to board a plane, or you'll most likely loose a lot of time being searched (if not strip searched).

xox, d.