Tara's Favorite Bag - Zipper Part 2 :)

Okay, so, we have the zipper attached to the zipper fabric, and there's excess zipper at both ends :)

Now, while the zipper is still easily manueverable, you will want to trim the "open" end of the zipper to about 1 inch from the end of the fabric.  Fold back this zipper at a slight angle, and stitch/tack it in place securely.  This picture should help explain what I mean.

The picture shows the zipper attached, but that's only because I didn't take a picture before attaching it.

The next step is to pin your zipper piece to the bag.  Look at this picture while I explain.

You want to center this zipper fabric in the center of your bag.  You will have your bag inside out, and the zipper fabric will be on the "right" side of the bag as you see here.  The "inside" of the bag is the greenish/tan.. an the "outside" is the purple.  You will have about 1 1/2 inches from the end of the zipper fabric to the seam on both ends.  Pin this well.

The above picture shows a close up of the "bottom" end of the zipper.  This end will be a little tight to stitch around, but if you take your time it should be fine.  We are not stitch quite yet however.  We need to pin the binding to the top as well.

So we are going to take our binding strips (2 1/4" x 40") and pin it on top of the zipper fabric.  Still working with the bag inside out.  I leave a few inches of the binding fabric beginning and end unpinned so that I can cut them to fit perfectly in a bit.  First we will stitch the binding and zipper fabric to the top of the bag.  Looking at the picture above, we will start to the right of the open binding ends, stitch around the top of the bag and end to the left of the loose binding ends.  There will be about 4 inches that isn't stitched yet.

Above is a picture of the zipper and binding at my machine.  I'm ready to stitch.  (Remove the pins before you get to them.)

I take the piece out of the machine.  Then I lay the bag flat, and smooth out the loose binding ends.  I want to cut them so that they overlap 1/2 of an inch.  I usually estimate, but you can measure exactly if you'd like to.

I then pin the ends together, and pulling / folding them out from the bag, I take it to the machine and stitch the binding closed.  See picture below for what it will look like when flattened out again.

Then take it back to the machine and complete the binding stitching.  The binding and zipper fabric should now be securely fastened to the bag.  Our bag is still inside out!

Next we want to fold the binding all the way to the inside of the bag (which in this current position is the "outside" of the bag) .. You can see in the above picture that I smooth it out so that the seam will be pressed over as well as the binding.  The line between the tan binding in this picture and the green zipper fabric is actually the seam line as well.  Fold over and pin all the way around the bag.

When you get to the "bottom" end of the zipper, pin the ends of the zipper on top of the binding.  This will secure this end and make opening and closing the zipper easier.

We will then do our top finish-stitching.  First, stitch a generous 1/4 inch from the seam line.  This will place the stitching just on the edge of the bulk of the seam which was turned over. (This first stitching is shown in the picture above.) 
In the picture below, you see the 2nd line of stitching, which is right on the edge of the fold of the binding. This should be 1/4 " away from your first line of stitching.

Turn your bag right side out.  Are you ready?  There is your finished bag! :)  Isn't it magnificant! :)