Sewing With Nancy

Known as the zipper lady, our Nancy's Corner guest was recently acknowledged by the volunteer organization, Clothes for Kids, for her dedication to keeping children warm during the winter. Replacing zippers in coats is no easy task. I was inspired by this story. I know you will be, too. I'd like you to welcome Mary Kolb who is the Zipper Lady. Mary, when I read your story and that you have repaired hundreds of zippers I knew you had to be a guest on Sewing with Nancy. Thank you for having me. Tell me when you started to repair zippers. In the year 2000. Since then, the number is pretty astounding. Tell the viewers. I've done it in 1300 coats for Clothes for Kids. That's remarkable, 1300 coats kept kids warm kept jackets out of landfills. I admire your dedication. Thank you. What we thought we'd do is share with you some of Mary's tips because we're not going to replace the whole zipper. Sometimes you do that. But sometimes it's just as easy as replacing the glider. Right, many times, people will say "I need a new zipper" and they don't really need a new zipper. They need to save their parts and it can maybe be fixed much easier that way. That's key, save the parts. Because in this zipper this coat came to you without the zipper glider. Right. Even though we're not working on a hard surface we'll kind of show you what Mary did. Mary, you have your nice little pad that you made. You put it on your table. Let's do this side. Then you've got your tackle box full of supplies. You did a little chiseling. Right, I break this top stop on that side. Be sure you always do it on the female side. Where the glider inserts. Where it's going to go Just chisel that off. Right, pull it off with a pliers. Then, I happen to have-- I order my supplies from a company and put on the new glider. This takes just a few minutes. We're just going to get it started at the top. We practiced this, I know it works. There we go. And presto. As Mary is zipping it I want to show you that in her tackle box, she has all kinds of stops. Right, I can't add a plastic top but I can add a metal one. Then the coat is fixed. A good lesson to all of us is that when you get a coat and it has the parts and it has a little accessory on it what do you do with that? I remove that because I feel it pulls the glider apart. If you notice on this one. I'll hold it for you. This has been pulled apart. People will come and say that their zipper is broke. No, you simply pulled that apart and you can, as a Band-Aid to have the coat for the day, or whatever just close this about 1/32", very little because you don't want to break that neck off inside. That needs to be-- There's a little prong in there and that needs to be closed a little so that the zipper teeth can close. If that's too wide, people say well, it opens from the bottom. That's why it opens from the bottom. We've all had that. If I had that on a metal zipper now and closed it like that, it would be fine. But what I try to teach people to do and should we do it on this coat? Sure. Try to teach the children when they're closing their coat to run their thumbnail up this way so they're putting the pressure on the top or down like this, not out like this. Of course, when they have that extra decoration on there they're so apt to pull like that and you're pulling this bottom apart. That's why it does that. So, Mary's hint is to grasp the tab and pull upward or push downward. Don't pull straight out. You may have a metal zipper. You have taken off that you have some kind of makeshift pliers. You put a felt section in there so that you could easily remove the top stops. What a great hint. We're not going to go through replacing a zipper but this happens to everyone. Boy, what a great way that you have honored children by fixing their coats. Thank you for being with us and keep up 100 coats a year! I will try. Thank you, Mary. I hope you've enjoyed this program that I've done with Mary as well as Eileen Roche on "Handbags 2 Designer Knockoffs." All things Sewing with Nancy

you can find at our website

nancyzieman.com. Watch 52 shows, find out about our Nancy's Corner guests. Most of all, thank you for joining me. Bye for now.