I always put the zipper in the back piece before I attach the back to the front with the welting sandwiched in between.
Am I missing your point???? (I can read something over and over and still be confused :^)....talk me through this and maybe I can help...I make jillions of pillows.

I always put my zippers in while it's still in it's flat state,before sewing front to back.Does that make sense??
Kathi

How I normally sew in a zipper (without welting) is to put the two sides together, fronts facing and then mark where the zipper goes. Then I sew from the edge up to that mark on both ends. I baste stitch closed the area between the two marks. That's to make it easier to line the zipper teeth up with the seem and to remove the stitches after the zipper has been sewn in place.

With this method you sew the pieces together before you put in the zipper. That means if any welting is going in it has to be included before this stage. I'll take the front piece of fabric and sew the welting all the way around it and THEN proceed as I described above for inserting the zipper. I don't see how you can avoid putting the zipper in first before the welting as been sewn to the fabric. Yet when it's in place it's so close to the seem the bulk makes it very cumbersome to sew in one side of the zipper tape.

What's making this so frustrating is that books don't show you can to do this. The authors must be shying away from this, maybe it's too confusing to describe. They show you have to sew in welting, they show you how to sew a zipper into a pillow but they chicken out when it comes to sewing the two together.

The book Sandra Betzina Sews for Your Home has instructions for this. You can buy it used for a few bucks at Amazon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Book

For those of you that baste in zippers,you may be interested to know that in the quilt notions dept they have a 1/4 " basting tape.It's double sided and this is what i use for zippers.A lot easier than using pins.The zippers go in so much easier and it's water soluable.
kathi

I also put my zippers in the back piece before construction. I put it close to one edge with an overlap. The fabric that is at the edge where welting will be is just a single layer. I have used the invisible zippers about an inch inside the seam where the welting will be.

I make zillions of pillows for an interior designer and will swear by using invisible zippers. I attach zipper first and then wrong sides together, sew other seams.

Have applied zippers with welting, braid, ruffles, beading, etc. .. once you get the knack of it you will LOVE it.

Her clients are impressed that you can't tell a zipper is there.