How to Sew Zippers - Top stitching for a side zipper

Hi, I'm Karen, for Expert Village. So place your garment on the fabric. Now I am going to, the zipper pull is right here, I'm going to start my stitching just below zipper pull and when I finished installing the zipper, and I'll go back and sew the rest of that to the zipper pull. But at this point I don't want to hit the zipper pull, because I'm going as close to the zipper teeth as possible. And you just put your foot down where it will go down nice and close without being pushed out by the zipper pull. And set your stitch length to a normal stitch length, or a topstitch length, whatever you want to, and 1/2 is a normal stitch length. And do a few stitches forward, and a few stitches back just to knot that and then continue down and we're riding very close to the edge of the seam, and therefore, very close to the teeth of the zipper. Okay, when we get to our mark, you can put the needle in, lift the foot, and pivot, and then sew across the bottom of the zipper teeth. And if you want reinforcement, you can go forward and back and the needle should go right through the plastic teeth of the zipper. If you're using a metal zipper, you shouldn't sew over it, you should be very careful, maybe roll the machine, and make sure that the needle doesn't hit the teeth. Now, for topstitching, you may want to get some guide tape to tape onto the top of the fabric and then you could sew along the edge of that guide teeth. You could also take a ruler and chalk and draw a line guiding your, so that you get a nice straight topstitching there. I'm just going to do it by eye. And continue down, okay, and you can remove all the threads here, get rid of those.