Friday, November 16, 2012

Separated Zipper Repair!

So, the other day I got these boots, after ordering them online. I was SO excited, but then this happened:


If you can't make it out, the great tragedy is that the zipper is completely separated at the bottom, with literally no way to fix it as is. Of course, I don't find this out until I'm shamelessly dancing around to The Wanted and the zipper comes undone, ALL THE WAY UP TO MY ANKLE (about the top of the strap you can see in the picture). They're super comfy and they look good though, so I really didn't want to return them...but when I looked up whether any of the nearby Macy's had them in stock, so I could hopefully exchange them, I was out of luck. No boots in my size in a 60 mile radius. At that point, I realized the only option I had left was to fix them myself, which I'm proud to say I did with only a needle and thread! You can check out what I did after the jump.
I figured, if I can just keep the zipper together, I can keep it from splitting open under average duress. The only way I could think of doing that involved either sewing or glue, and glue is unreliable and messy, and damn near impossible to fix if you're using superglue, which I was sure would be the best bet. I decided that sewing would probably be the best choice, so I raided my mom's supplies for black thread and managed to find a needle in my own container full of pins. I used about five feet of thread, but that's just an estimate, and that length was halved once the needle was threaded and the thread double-knotted.  These boots have a flap on one side of the zipper and the other side is just plain zipper, so I began at the very bottom, and stitched across the zipper, and down through the other side.


If it looks like I sewed through the zipper, that's just because I tried to keep it as close to the zipper as possible. In the end, I sewed up about five inches of zipper, TWICE. The end result isn't that noticeable, up close or far away, and if I end up ripping the thread, it's easy to fix again.


 I do wish I had used a thicker thread, and if this ends up failing, that's probably what I'll go with. I haven't worn them out of my house yet, but they have withstood my prancing about, and tomorrow I'm planning on going shopping, so that'll be a nice road test. 


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