Cathy writes from Australia:
My granddaughter has a rash shirt made out of lycra but the neck opening is too small for her. Is it possible to increase the opening by inserting a zipper in one of the raglan seams at the neck?
My answer to her is this: (Make sure you scroll in the box to get to the end) Hi Cathy,
You have a great idea, there. Adding a zipper will surely give you some extra room in the neck.
If there is a seam along the shoulder edge, you are all set. Just insert a zipper as you normally would when constructing a garment.
Method 2:
Sometimes the raglan sleeves only have an underarm seam. If that is the case, you will have to "create" some seam allowance. That should not be a problem, you will just have to give some extra attention to the area where the zipper ends.
Make a slit slightly smaller than the zipper length. At the area where the bottom end of the zipper goes, make a "v" shaped snip (If you've ever made a welt pocket, the cutting is the same).
You will then fold back the "v" and fold under along the edges of the longer cut you made. The fabric that you folded under becomes your seam allowance.
The zipper tape will show a bit in this case. You cannot use an invisible zipper. With the styles of today, you may even want to make this a design feature and use a zipper of a contrasting color!
I have attached a rather rough drawing of Method 2. The Orange line is the cutting line, the green one is the existing neckline. In the second drawing, the blue area is the part where the zipper tape will show. Again, the green line is your garment neckline. The orange dotted lines are the folded edges formed by folding under the raw edges of the cuts you just made.
Let us know how things turn out. You can always email a picture to me at maripat@learning-alterations.com
Thanks for your comment, and please stay in touch.
Maripat
LearningAlterations.com
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