Jane awhile back talked about her handpicked zipper that she did on Butterick 5917.  I tend to avoid any hand sewing like the plague. My Sewing OCD comes out like crazy because I want all the stitches to be nice and even. Plus, I’m a horrific hand-sewer to begin with, OCD aside.

So it was with great reluctance that I decided to put in a handpicked zipper into this lovely skirt I was making, and see what all the fuss is about. In addition, I went absolutely against the book here and DIDN’T LINE IT!  Consider me officially straight jacket crazy.

The traditional way of doing a handpicked zipper is with a prickstitch.  A prickstitch is a like a backstitch, I wanted an near invisible stitch and thought the machine way would be to distracting.

To make a prickstitch bring the needle up through all layers of the zipper tape and garment. (Below I’m using a sample fabric.)

Take the needle place it close to the stitch, and ‘prick’ up the fabric and/or  zipper facing. Bring the needle out through the layers.

Pull the thread through and you will only have a small dot of thread on the outside of the garment.

Continue to make stitches placing the needle near or even slightly behind the last stitch.

The back side will have a line of stitches  like so. (OCD rising up like an uncontrollable wave!!)

Typically you space the pricks about 1/4″.  Don’t pull the thread to tight or puckers will result.

A handpicked zipper offers near invisibility to the surface, but it’s quite strong. I did this on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and really it didn’t take that much time at all and was rather a  pleasant task to do. Plus, it looks very minimal which I like.  And, really it’s a better zipper install then when I do it by machine. Go figure. So are you ready to give it a try?