How to shorten zippers for pouches and bags

I have made two pouches for a little girl.

Naturally, I made them small and the zippers I have on hand are too long. If this happens to you too, it’s not necessary to shop for new zippers, because shortening a zipper is easy task!

The zippers can be shorten in different ways and it depends on the technique used for inserting the zipper.

One of the easiest way to insert the zipper is when you insert it into this opening; this technique is used for zippered pockets on bags and I used the same technique on one of my pouch patterns; this is my favorite technique, easy and quick too, as it doesn’t require tabs.

So I want to show you how I manage this long zipper and I will tell you what’s the cool part!

So I place the zipper under the opening, keeping the bottom stop at the corner, as shown below. The teeth must be centered into the window.
You could keep the zipper in place with a little glue or double adhesive tape or just baste it with thread (woops, I am good at theory, I did not use any on these zippers!).
I start sewing at 1/2” from the corner, see the yellow dot- important.

I continue sewing until I reach the corner then I sew on the short side (3); I triple this stitching (sew forward, backward and again forward); this strong stitching makes for an easy zipper opening.

In the same way, I sew along the other long side, short side…

…then I finish the stitching, being careful to meet it with the starting stitching (6).

What’s the cool part?

You stitch only once over the teeth! Stitching #5 (above) is done on the zipper tape- easy sewing.
You could position the top zipper stop at the corner and you will also sew only once over the teeth; I do that sometimes, but I find that it is not as easy to open the zipper as it is with the technique described above.

The last step – trim off the excess.

Here is, the easiest way to insert a zipper – of any size!

I fused the last scrap of Thermolam Plus to the fabric; at first, I thought it is too heavy for the small size of the pouches, now I like the padded look a lot!

Now, this is the smaller part of my gift for a little girl. She will be happy to discover it, inside of a bigger gift!  I will show you soon!
I hope zippers don’t scare you anymore!

This tutorial is included in the SEW BETTER BAGS ebook.
If you want to learn more about sewing quality bags, download the free ebook below.