Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends and family near and far. I thought I would share one of my favourite poems about Canada. It is by Shane Koyczan, a Canadian poet and writer, from the North West Territories.  

In Shane Koyczan's poem he mentioned that in Canada "... we made these crazy things like zippers ...".  Yea, for zippers! But I had no idea that zippers were Canadian. Did you? Well, if you're not celebrating Canada Day... maybe zippers?

Judson's Clasp Locker {source}

The prototype for the zipper, the clasp locker, was not invented here in Canada.  The clasp locker, an American invention by Whitcomb Judson, had very little commercial success since it was introduced to the world at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

Swedish-born Canadian, Gideon Sundback perfected Judson's invention and in 1913 he had designed the modern day zipper.  In 1917 a patent was issued for "the separable fastener".  Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the separable fastener.

Zippers have come a long way since then in styling, but the basic mechanism remains the same.

Today fabric stores not only carry the functional zippers we use for clothing they carry decorative zippers to add pop to our creations.  Threads has a good article about inserting decorative zippers.

I haven't used a decorative zipper in any of my creations. So far it hasn't been something that I've been inspired to add, although I do like the look of them on others. Maybe it is because it is my least favourite part of sewing... I seem to need to have the seam ripper near by when inserting a zipper.

How about you, have you used decorative zippers?  Do you like the look of them?  Yea, or nay?