Thursday, August 9, 2012

Please rescue me.

Can you see what's wrong with my almost finished dress?  It's not that it needs to be hemmed (it does.)  There's a reason I'm not wearing it for this photo. 

The zipper is broken, and I am ready to throw this out the window.  This dress has taken forever to make, and tonight I finally hand picked the lining in, eagerly tried it on, and then... tried to take it off.  That's when I realized that the zipper teeth had gotten misaligned right at the top of the peplum, and I couldn't get this sucker off.  I couldn't pull it down over my hips, or up over my shoulders.  I ended up cutting off the zipper stops at the top of the zipper, pulling the zipper head off, and now I have this:

That black speck on the floor?  The zipper head.  How to get it back onto the dress?
I have decided that I would rather start all over again than take the zipper out and install a new one (and yes, I know that makes no sense at all, as reinstalling the zipper will take much less time than starting all over again.)  Is that the only answer?  Does anyone know how to fix a broken invisible zipper?
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7 comments:

  1. CGCoutureAugust 9, 2012 at 10:42 PM

    That sucks. I have accidentally pulled the zipper pull off before, but I wasn't successful in getting it back on. Sorry.

    However, if it would help, those seam rippers that look more like a curved scalpel-type thing work pretty darn slick on long straight seams like this, so you could rip the zipper out in like 5 minutes. Maybe less if you are more coordinated than I.

    Good luck!

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  2. SewOmAugust 9, 2012 at 11:24 PM

    Awww, please finish! It looks so lovely. Put it aside for a week or so and the zipper thing will feel like an incident, not a tragedy.

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  3. katherine hAugust 10, 2012 at 3:20 AM

    I've stopped buying invisible zippers from the chain stores as they never seem to last and I have garments with broken zippers after just one or two wears. Now I buy YKK zippers online, to avoid this happening. Examine the teeth of the zippers. If they look mangled (as mine did), I think the only option is to replace them.

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  4. AliceAugust 10, 2012 at 8:40 AM

    Oh Melissa, what an extremely annoying thing to happen. I'm gutted for you.

    I really think SewOm is spot on when she says leave it for a while and come back to it. Maybe find something else to grab your attention in the meantime.

    I'm sorry, I have no idea about how to fix the zip.

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  5. GailAugust 10, 2012 at 5:41 PM

    I'd consider inserting the new zip by hand using a prick stitch.

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    Replies
    1. ToteworthyAugust 11, 2012 at 2:50 PM

      This happened recently on a dress I made for my daughter. We were able to cut off the bottom of the invisible zip and thread the stopper from the bottom. I zigzagged over the inner end once it was zipped. Hope it works for you.

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  6. Tia DiaAugust 14, 2012 at 9:39 PM

    OH! How frustrating and horrible! I'd try to wiggle a new zip onto the threads, but if that really caused me tears, I'd probably take out the zipper and put in a hand-picked one.

    ReplyDelete

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