One of W-‘s winter jackets had a zipper that started to separate at the bottom. In retrospect, I should’ve tried squeezing the slider with pliers to see if that simple fix would take care of it. Then again, W- had probably already tried that before checking out zipper replacement tutorials on Youtube. Besides, replacing the zipper would also let us swap out the coil zipper for a plastic molded zipper (or what YKK calls Vislon zippers), which W- wanted.

There’s a tailor near us that charges $1/inch for replacing zippers, but I figured I’d give it a shot first. Free opportunity to learn a potentially useful skill, after all. I used a seam ripper to open the zipper-related seams. One of the sides came apart pretty quickly, but the other side required reaching through the lining of the jacket in order to loosen a few stitches before I could cut the rest of the threads.

Since I had the lining open anyway, I figured it was a good time to unpick the over-zipper flap’s hook-and-loop tape segments so that I could replace them with snaps. (Velcro is not a good idea when you have three cats.)

Yesterday I went on a long walk downtown to pick up supplies, since the fabric warehouse near us didn’t have the zippers or snaps I was looking for. I wasn’t sure what length to get and I forgot to bring the old zipper along, so I bought a 24″ zipper and a 26″ zipper from Fabricland – both one-way separating locking plastic moulded zippers. I bought rust-resistant snaps from a small store on Queen Street near Spadina.

I spent most of today learning how to replace the zipper. I took the time to baste both sides, which worked out well. I was a little concerned about the holes for the bottom snaps letting in wind and water, so I hand-sewed some polyurethane film behind the bottom snaps to catch some of that. My machine-stitching was a little wobbly because of the thickness, and there were parts I still needed to hand-stitch with the help of a thimble. Maybe next time I might hand-stitch the whole thing so that I can line things up better. The underside of my machine-stitched zipper wandered a bit. Still, I’m sure W- won’t mind!

Sewing the zipper and installing the snaps took me about five hours, but I’m sure that will get faster with practice. It was good to see things take shape, and the time passed quickly enough with Youtube videos in the background. I might take future zippers to the tailor if I’m pressed for time. Today, though, it was good to cross off another unexpected addition to my bucket list. =)