Cell Phone Photo Urban Hoodie Zipper Tutorial!

I've been trying to sew another Urban Hoodie with the zipper since last week so I could take some better photos of this process for you, but alas the whole "having three kids" and "teaching college courses" and "trying to finish my PhD" and "finishing my Celebrate the Boy tutorial" thing has slowed me down a bit. 

So, in order to get this up so you guys can try it out, I present you with the Cell Phone Photo Urban Hoodie Zipper Tutorial! I guess you can call it CPPUHZT for short. :)

I used a 7-inch zipper in my 18-month size hoodie. I'm making a 5T now for Quinn, and I'm still using a 7-inch zipper. Use whatever size zipper blows your skirt up, but make sure it is NOT a separating zipper. 

1. Sew the pattern as normal through step 17, where you would normally sew the two front panels together.

2. Lay the zipper face down on the bottom front panel, right next to the edge where the front panel meets the bottom panel. Pin in place. I also pinned the extra zipper tape at the top and bottom in towards the center of the zip.

3. Sew straight down the wrong side of the zipper tape on the left side of the zipper.

It will look like this when you're done:

4. Fold the zipper back towards the center of the hoodie, so that the right side is now up and your stitching line in now underneath the zipper, and press.

5. With the zipper closed, pin the top panel of the hoodie to the left zipper tape. Again, I tucked the top and bottom extra tape in.

6. Now, starting at the bottom, follow your topstitching line (just like you would if you were sewing it with buttons) up to the bottom of the zipper. 

When you get to the bottom of the zip, make a turn with your stitches and sew right underneath the zip. 

Then top stitch down the side of the zipper that is attached to the bottom panel. 

Take your hoodie out of the machine and flip it around, and topstitch down the zipper to the front panel of the hoodie. Just follow the topstitching line that is already there. Basically, stitch the green line shown below, and then the purple line. Sew the green line from bottom to top, and the purple line from top to bottom. 

8. You're done! Finish the rest of the hoodie as normal. 

I hope you all don't hate me too much for presenting you with cell phone photos of the process, but I think you get the idea. Happy sewing!