Goodbye invisible zippers & hello handpicking!

For the first time in a long time, my internet was capped for a few days! Soooo 2001...

I was devastated, I couldn't watch new Homeland, Revenge or Gossip Girl; download Justin Bieber's song (don't laugh but I really like the song 'Beauty and a Beat' after hearing it on X Factor Au) or reply to your comments on my last post about zippers, accidentally cutting my hair and not oiling my machine.

My sewing teacher oiled my machine for me last week, and when reading my manual to see where to oil, it said "make sure to oil the machine once a week if you use it more than an hour a day"... hrm. Thoughts?

Re my paranoia about cutting of my hair and measuring tape, I'm glad you guys can relate to my fear of chopping things off accidentally. I always make sure I am at my most alert when I am cutting my seam allowances and clipping my curves. And when using my rotary cutter :) 

A lot of you guys commented and said that invisible zippers are not as strong as dress zippers but most tend to use invisible zippers. I'm the same, I like invisible zippers because they are "easier" (read: no hand sewing) to install, give a cleaner finish and hand sewing can be a ball breaker sometimes. But there's no denying they are not as strong as the old dress zipper.

I still remember last year when I wore my handmade 'cobalt' skirt to a NYE party and halfway through the festivities, my invisible zipper broke! Luckily it was still holding together at the waistband so my skirt didn't fall down. In public. OMG :(

A week later when I wore my 'burnt orange' dress out on the weekend, I packed spare clothes in my handbag incase I had a wardrobe malfunction. Mind you, the zipper on the dress was an exposed metal zipper, but I was so traumatised by what had happened on NYE, it made me question how durable my handmade garments were. It took months for me to trust my sewing again. 

Then the zipper tab broke off my 'Squiggle' dress. FFS.

I then realised it wasn't my sewing, it was those stupid Birch invisible zippers! I even had one break on me during installation. 

People have told me to use YKK zippers as they are most durable and used on most RTW clothing. So far I have had no luck finding these YKK zippers :(

Sewaholic and Cation Designs were the first blogs I followed religiously when I started reading sewing blogs. 

I am obsessed with Tasia's Simplicity 3965 dresses and love the handpicked zip on her picnic dress. 

When stalking Cindy's blog archive and drooling over her M5845 and NL6723 dresses, I always stop to admire the handpicked zip on the Hippo dress.

Now for some handpicked zipper p o r n...

Tasia's 'Picnic' dress.
(source)

Cindy's 'Hooray for Hippos' dress.
(source)

Gertie's 'Lemon Tree' dress.
(source)

So beautiful <3

I tried my first handpicked zipper when making my Mad Men dress using Tasia's very awesome tutorial.
It turned out OK for my first try. I tried it a few more times on my M6331 strapless dresses (here & here) and on one of my skirts and my 'meh' lace dress the other week.

Most recently, I handpicked a zipper on this beautiful floral dress...

Practice makes perfect, I've finally got it right. My stitches are more even and straight. Woo hoo prickstitch!

I'm so confident with my skills that I've offered to repair the zipper on my cousin's handmade dress from Paris! Only concern is my 'stitches' aren't as visible (therefore aren't as strong?) as Tasia, Cindy and Gertie's... something I'll work on next time.

I am so in love with the little 'dots' of thread peeking through the fabric. Ahh smitten.

It is much easier to control the zipper when handpicking, and easier to unpick too. I had to re-do the zipper on this dress and take it in an inch on each side - unpicking the prickstitch (on the zipper tape side) was sooo much easier than unpicking tiny stitches next to the teeth of an invisible zipper.

From now on I will handpick (most of) my zippers because it makes the dress extra special to me, hand sewing can be therapeutic, and dress zippers seem to be stronger than invisible ones.

Oh, and dress zippers are much cheaper too, and since I'll only be buying one zipper from now on, I'll be saving so much $$. More money to spend on fabric!

So ladies, have you handpicked a zipper?