I added a zipper to my Heartwarming Hugs Bear!

I wish I took more pictures but here’s a general description of what I did:

  1. Removed the original Velcro. They sewed it into the neck/arm area of the bear, so you might have to resew it on later if you’re a barbarian like me. When you’re done, you should have a flap of soft fabric like on image 3.

  2. Open the inner side of the white felt that the Velcro stuck to. You can see that I lifted the flap on image 3. This is just to make things easier to sew later on.

(Now that I think about it, you probably don’t have to do this but if you’re having a hard time even inserting your thread, it’ll help to have a flap that isn’t just stuffing to thread through.)

  1. Prepare your needle and thread. Get your zipper. I used an invisible zipper because I thought it’d look nicer. You can see what the side facing you should look like on the second to last image.

  2. Open your zipper and pin it in place like how you see in the second to last image. Double check that the orientation is correct by opening and closing the zipper if you aren’t sure.

  3. Back stitch the zipper into place on both sides. Do NOT sew super close to the teeth otherwise it’ll be REALLY hard to open (I actually had to redo it because pulling the zipper close was so hard my fingers still hurt LOL).

You’re going to have to flip the bear around to the other side when you’re done sewing one side. Your POV while sewing should be as shown where my finger’s pointing in the last image. You can also see how far I sewed away from the teeth, but you could definitely do further away if you wanted.

I highly recommend using the back stitch sewing technique from this video from 1:07 on to make it much easier to sew in place since you don’t have a ton of room underneath the fabric to do it the usual way.

Extra notes:

If you need to sew the upper arm back into place or the neck area closed like I did, use a ladder stitch

If you need to trim the zipper you got if it’s too long, make sure your zipper is closed before you do that (I ruined one because I derailed one side and didn’t know how to get it back on the side I cut anymore lol)

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It’s not the prettiest job and I’m not an expert but hopefully this helps someone!