The Almost Invisible Zipper

Boy, did I have a time with this zipper! Emily's comment about having to make things twice to get it right is so true. Since I drafted my own A-line skirt pattern using the Sew What! Skirts book there were a few learning experiences. One experience of course is this zipper. Thank goodness the vintage zipper I used is a perfect color match to the base color of the skirt. I tried to sew that zipper in twice with disastrous results. In the end I just hand basted the zipper in, used a hidden stitch to lay the seam flush with zipper and used a regular zipper foot to secure everything together. It looks neat so I guess that's all I can ask for!However, there was a slip of the seam ripper (on the second zipper removal session) that lead to a tear in the garment itself. I know heart attack right! So my new skirt already has a patch.
And to make matters a little worse the patch was on the front of the skirt. But I switched things around and now my zipper located on the right side of my body instead of the traditional left side. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist!

And I also learned all about darts. I just made a two dimensional object 3-dimensional! I did have to pull out some old sewing books to figure out how long the darts should be. Never found a straight answer about that but I did discover all darts (on bottom garments) should be pressed to the center of the garment. I suppose I never really noticed that before. There were more tips detailing the seamstress to shorten your stitches as you sew towards the point of the dart and to box knot the thread ends and leave a 1'' tail of thread so the dart point will be crisp and defined and the thread won't unravel with years of use.

All that's left is to add some pin tuck detailing at the bottom of the skirt and hem it up!