Make a money belt! Step 2 - adding the zip
 

• Now sew the other folded square over the closed end of the zip in exactly the same way (fold of rectangle to zip puller, short sides parallel to zip track). Trim the pieces of material to the zip tape. When you are finished, your zip should open and close smoothly without the slider falling off. It does? Then go and have a coffee break before the next part, unless you feel especially brazen.

• Change your machine's foot for a zip foot to make the sewing easier in what follows. Take your base material, wrong side up, and fold over 1cm along the shorter edge (that is, when you have done this, the material will be a 21cm square), wrong sides together.

• Take the zipper with its two two folded squares sewn over each end, which you prepared in the previous steps. The zip should be lying flat on the bed of the sewing machine with its puller side up (the side you will see on the outside of the money belt). Place the folded edge of the material on the tape of the prepared zip so that the edge of the fold is 1cm from the zip teeth, and the 1cm folded section is tucked under. When you look at it all from the top, you should see the zip in its normal position, with the main material lined up neatly, right side facing you, the near edge of material clear of the zip teeth by about 1cm. Make sure the zip tape is centred under your folded material, and your alignment of the material from the zip's teeth is even right along the length of the zip. Sew along the edge of the fold, as close to the fold as your nerves (and fingernails) will allow. Be careful - you are sewing through three thicknesses of material - the zip tape at the bottom, then the doubled material which lies over it, like this:

RS = Right Side

 (Shows a cross-section of the zip and the 1cm fold above)

G = 1cm gap between zip teeth and fold edge

• Check the sewing very carefully if you are new to sewing zips, making sure the zip slider can move freely along its length. Now, do the same with the opposite edge of the material: fold 1cm under (wrong sides together), bring it over so that it sits over the other tape of your zip, on the upper face of the zip, again 1cm from the zip's teeth. It's a bit awkward here unless you unzip the zip, because if you are doing this right, you'll need to work on the inside of the whole thing. Double check that everything is equal and square. You might find some pins useful here to keep the position of everything while you grapple with it. Sew the opposite edge on the opposite tape of the zip, close to the fold again, being very careful to go through only three layers once more like this:

 (shows the zip sewn on both edges of the material)

• You will now have a tube, with a zip along the length of it. The wrong sides of the material will be together now and the right side is on the outside, that is when the zip's puller faces out. Check it carefully for the quality of the sewing and see that you haven't inadvertently caught a piece of the material in the stitching. When you are at this point you are halfway.

Go to the next page (finalising construction) >>

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