3 Leaf Clover Zipper Pin Tutorial

I’m a little bit Irish (I like to joke that I’m a mix of everything that sunburns) so I wanted to make a little something to wear for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a simple folding/twisting pattern loosely based on the cloverleaf  (the basic pattern used for barrel racing). You can’t do a true clover leaf or your zipper gets twisted up.

There are 2 types of zippers, ones the separate and ones that don’t. Mine happened to be the closed type so I started off by clipping the zipper right above the bar that holds it together, separate the two pieces, pull off the tap and set it aside for another project another day.

I’m fairly certain you can put this whole thing together with a hot glue gun BUT I cleaned and now I can’t  find mine, so I had to give it a few stitches and added the button to cover it up.

Start with your long piece of zipper, make a loop at the very top and placing the raw edge behind. Glue together if you can find your hot glue gun and just keep holding if you cant. I only used the pin so I could keep my fingers out of the way.

Add another loop, it’s going to look kind of like a backwards ‘B’. Every loop goes on top of the last one. (This is where I confuse you barrel racers out there, the real cloverleaf would be a figure 8 not a B)

Make one last loop, it goes between the other two. The part hanging down becomes the stem. If you’ve been hot gluing as you go you are done, if not get your needle and thread and stitch the whole mess together in the center (all my stitches are hidden by the button).

Glue or sew a pin on the back and stick it to your coat just in time for St. Patrick’s Day! It would also look cute glued to a headband for a little girl or pinned to a little boys vest.

If you get lost remember:

• the zipper is never twisted, the top is the top the whole time
• the plastic zipper part is always on the inside of the loop
• each new loop goes on top