In the meantime, a zipper replacement

While I was thinking about my next project and not working on hemming the purple skirt, I decided to tackle replacing the broken zipper in the lined pants.

Here's what it looked like first. The teeth had parted company below the slide and I couldn't get them to line up for love nor money.

I took a photo of the "before" - what it looked like before I ripped it out - so I'd know how to put the new one in, in case I forgot.

I started ripping out just the stitches around the zipper itself. I didn't want to reconstruct the pants themselves and they are fully lined, which complicates things a little.

And I kept on ripping the stitches out.

I got one side ripped out and started on the other. I just eased out the tops of the zipper from the waistband, thinking I could slip the top of the new zipper into the gap.

The lining had been caught in the stitching on the inside of one side of the zipper, so it came apart when I got the zipper out.

Once I got the whole broken zipper out, I started by pinning one side of the new zipper in place, tucking the bottom into the hole where I had extracted the old zipper. I cut the excess off the tops of the zipper tape and tucked those ends in under the waistband.

I abandoned pins early and basted everything so I could manouever it without sticking myself. Also, it helped me place the new zipper in as accurately as possible. Before I sewed it on the machine, I turned to the inside and basted the lining to where it would be caught by the machine stitching.

I sewed the side with the zipper teeth right next to the fold first and then tucked the ends in and basted the other side, which went under the overlap. Instead of disassembling the entire front, I cheated and just sewed the tape down under the tab overlap, right down the middle. The stitching shows on the right side but since I normally wear a shirt tail out or a sweater over the waist, it won't show much.

In any event, it doesn't show even when you look it it fairly closely. Anyway, I can always go back in and hand stitch that side of the zipper and take out the machine stitches if I don't like it. I just feel that a machine stitched line is firmer and more sturdy than hand stitched. And now back to the skirt.