Shortening A Zipper

I was working on turning a dress into a skirt, but the zipper went from the top of the dress to below where I wanted to cut it for the skirt. I did not want to cut the zipper out and sew a new one in, or remove the zipper and do an elastic waist. After looking at the zipper and noticing the little silver zipper stoppers (as I call them), I decided to try taking them out and replacing them down the skirt right beneath where I was planning on cutting. This is exactly what I ended up doing, and it worked really well.

First I used some needle nosed pliers and a sewing pin to pry the zipper stopper off.

Top of dress

Zipper stopper after removal

Then I placed the zipper stopper where I wanted it on the zipper, and pushed the two little prongs through the zippers’ fabric using the pin and pliers to help get them through.

Little prongs pushed through fabric

Then, using the pliers, I squashed the larger prong down over the plastic part of the zipper.

Squashing

Then I did the same for the other side, and yay! New shorter zipper!

Yay!