Zippers - Maybe it's Finally Time

I've told you how I feel about zippers. In my entire sewing career, I've installed five of them. There was the pink tote bag in high school home ec, which had a cheap zipper that immediately failed, there was a skirt I made in that same class, there was the one I put in the cat bed that the cat has still never slept on, and there are the two that I put in circle skirts Teenage Daughter was making out of vintage sheets she raided from my stash.  She's come a long way since then and doesn't want or need my help with zippers anymore.

Zippers are like buttonholes and set in seams and paper piecing. I can do all sorts of things without them and, when a wonderful free tutorial pops up in my Pinterest feed I remind myself how horrible they are and quickly move on to something else. (Like pieced curves. I like those!)

It was definitely a sour grapes, I-didn't-want-to-do-that-anyway sort of situation.

My dislike of zippers didn't stop me from buying all of these at an estate sale a few years back. They were supposed to be five cents a piece, but the lady didn't feel like counting them all, so I got a big pile for two bucks. The plan was to make some cute things we'd  found on Pinterest that didn't involve actually sewing with them.

Then I saw the latest tutorial series that LiEr over at Ikat Bag is doing and I think I've changed my mind about zippers. I read through her Make a Bag tutorial series yesterday. There are so many different options that it had my head spinning, but she makes things sound so possible!

I can knit lace shawls. I can knit socks. I can piece curves and make quilts and do the quilting myself. If I put my mind to it, I can probably manage zippers....right?

I want my sewing machine back! The ones that are here and in working order don't have zipper feet, except one of my daughter's and it would be rude to ransack her bedroom closet to figure out where she stores it.