hi everyone. there have been a couple cool pants projects lately (e.g., kaffrin's black and pink jeans!) and there seemed to be lots of questions about how to do a fly front zipper. so i thought i'd make a tutorial the next time i installed one. hope this is helpful to someone. let me know if anything is unclear. here goes:
1. Cut out your pattern pieces. The back pieces will be unmodified, but if the pattern wasn’t already designed to have a fly, you will add extra “fly flaps” to the front center seam (indicated by the red solid line).
2. Leaving about an in open on the bottom, stitch the crotch seam, stopping at the fly flaps. (white dotted line).
3. Separate the pieces and lay them flat, right side up. Lay your zipper face down on the left side, lining up the zipper teeth with the front center seam. Stitch along the zipper tape on the right (red dotted line).
4. Turn the zipper right side up, folding the fly flap under the outer fabric. Press this fold. Cut off the excess fabric from the fly flap. Cut a rectangle of scrap fabric that is the length of your zipper and 3 – 4 inches wide. Fold this in half lengthwise and overcast or serge the raw edges together.
5. Pin your scrap rectangle underneath the zipper so the folded edge sticks out into the fly of the pants and the rest covers the wrong side of the zipper. Stitch through all layers (outer fabric, zipper tape, fly flap, and 2 layers of scrap rectangle), shown by red dotted line.
6. Now lay the 2 sides together again. Pin the 2 sides together along the line you stitches in the previous step. This is just to help you line things up and you won’t actually stitch there.
7. Now lift up the flap so you can see the zipper tape. Pin the zipper tape to the fly flap. Stitch, making sure you are only stitch through the zipper tape and fly flap. Overcast or serge the raw edge of the fly flap.
8. Open the 2 sides and lay them face up again. Line up the folded edge on the top piece with the stitch line on the bottom piece (red solid line). Pin. Press. Topstitch the outer fabric to the fly flap about 1 inch from the folded edge (white dotted line).
9. That’s it! Now you can add whatever type of waistband you like. Here’s what the fly looks like all finished. Notice that it is covered not only on the outside (hence the term “fly”), but also on the inside, so it’s more comfortable to wear! Just like store-bought pants.
