Carter has a favorite pair of footed pajamas (we call them bunny suits does anyone else?) and when the zipper broke he was heart broken! I tried to say we could look for another one but that did not console him! I looked over the pajamas and realized they were in pretty good condition other than a faulty zipper so I decided to try fixing them, after all I couldn't mess them up anymore than they already were ;0)
To start you'll need to examine the existing zipper. Turn it inside out and really look at the seams, especially at the bottom of the zipper. You'll notice that the zipper is very long, and it is probably serged on. Not to worry those are not big problems!
Starting at one end, it doesn't matter which unpick the serged seam that is holding the zipper on, do both sides. The bottom may be tricky just unpick it carefully and everything should be ok.
Now for the long zipper problem. On this pair of pajamas the zipper needed to longer than any zipper I could find, something like 42". I looked at my stash, and although I had long zippers I did not have one the length I needed. So I used the longest zipper I had which was about 25" long. I looked at the space Carter would have to get his legs in and that length would still leave plenty of room!
You will need to stitch a few lines along the bottom of the zipper so it doesn't' come undone while sewing it on. Then you will unzip the zipper all the way to that line of stitching you just made. Starting at the top of the neck opening, with the pajamas turned inside out, you will pin the zipper to the edge of the fabric.
Make sure the zipper head is facing the right side on the back side of the pajamas like it the picture above. After pinning both sides you will then sew with a zipper foot as close to the zipper teeth as you can get. When you get to the bottom you will need to zip the zipper up a bit to get close to the teeth at the end.
After you have sewn both sides you will need to reinforce the bottom. I did this by sewing about 2 inches along the bottom, as shown by the above photo. Watch the teeth if you are using a metal zipper, it will break your needle...ask me how I know ;0)
Walla! You are finished! It was actually an easy fix, right?! I was surprised that I fixed this in about 20 minutes which for an invisible zipper AND unpicking, is awesome!
Bonus:
If you want to fix the feet of your footed pajamas check this tutorial out!
Do you just want to take off the feet? Then check this tutorial out!
