Hidden Zipper Tutorial

As part of organizing the Tutorial tab above, this is a tutorial for installing a hidden zipper in a pillow cover.  These instructions are also part of the Modern Medallion Pillow tutorial which is already posted, but here are just the zipper instructions for easy reference.

This tutorial is copyright 2013 by The Colorful Fabriholic, for personal use only.  Please do not pin without attribution.

Hidden Zipper:

• For a large 24" pillow, use a 20-22" Invisible zipper and instructions.  For small pillows, 14" or smaller, use 14" zipper and mark at 1-1/2" inch from edges of pillow in steps 2 and 4.
• If you do not have an Invisible Zipper foot, use your regular zipper foot and stitch as close to the coils as possible.
• Insert the zipper before joining the pillow front and back together.
• Plan to use 1/2" seam allowances around the outsides of your pillow to keep it symmetrical, as the zipper seam allowance is about 1/2."

Invisible Zipper

1. Open zipper and press coils flat as directed in the zipper instructions.

Press zipper

2. Mark the right side of the pillow top 2" in from each side and mark the zipper to match, also right side up. (For small pillows, mark at 1-1/2")

Mark pillow front and mark zipper

3. Pin zipper to top, right sides together, matching markings. Roll excess top out of the way as it will be to the right of the needle. Stitch the zipper, keeping the needle as close to the coil as possible. Backtack at both ends.

Stitch zipper to pillow front

4. Mark the pillow back and the other side of the zipper like the front.

Mark back

5. Pin the zipper to the back, right sides together, matching marks.

Pin zipper to back

6. Stitch the zipper, again keeping the needle as close to the coil as possible. Backtack at both ends.

7. Holding the zipper tails out of the way, pin and sew the pillow front and back together from the edges to the end of the zipper stitching to complete the seam. The seam allowance will be about 1/2".

Sew remainder of seams from zipper to edge

8. By hand, just outside the opening, stitch the zipper tails together by whipping around the coils to form thread "stops" at both ends. If the tails extend past the edges of the pillow, cut them off at least one inch past the stops.

9. Close the zipper. From the wrong side, press zipper seam allowances open. The right side will now look like this:

Hidden zipper, shown open above zipper pull, closed below.