Rope Zipper pouch tutorial

inside: Sew a zipper pouch from rope! This cute and easy zipper pouch sewing tutorial is a fun new twist on zipper pouch sewing. Turn rope into a zipper pouch!

I saw an idea like this recently on social media… I was scrolling and by the time I realized what I was looking at I had scrolled past and couldn’t find it again. So I’ve created something similar, but probably nothing like I saw. There are tweaks to be made for the next time I sew one of these, but I LOVE the idea and happened to have this rope on hand.

DIY Rope zipper pouch

Didn’t this turn out so cute?? I had bought this pink rope for something else and then never made that other project. I was so pleased to have it in my stash when I went looking and be able to jump right into this rope zipper pouch project.

I’ve sewn with rope before. Rope baskets are so fun to sew, and I’ve made many many. LOVE them. You can really sew a basket of any size. This project is a bit different than sewing a basket as I just sewed it flat. I didn’t try to make the sides go up at all.

This actually sewed up really quickly. After creating the rope oval I just added the zipper and boom! Done! Below I will give more details of this process. The sizing and shape can really be different for each pouch though.

Other Zipper pouches to sew

• Duck tape zipper pouch
• Lined zipper pouch
• cube zipper pouch
• embroidered zipper pouch
• expandable popcorn style pouch

How to sew a zipper pouch from rope

Grab some rope and and a zipper and let’s get sewing!

First up, do not cut the rope, just work from the spool as you sew. This will allow you to be flexible with your size. The length of your zipper will determine the size of your pouch. I wanted an oval shape, so I started with about a 4″ doubled rope. Sew down the folded rope with a wide zig-zag {used 4.5-5.5mm wide} at the end of the double rope, fold the rope and turn and sew.

It was slow going for the first several rounds. I sew my machine speed to slow and just took my time. As the piece got bigger I was able to go faster and the rounds got smoother. When your shape is the same size as your zipper when folded in half, it’s time to finish.

I wanted a strap on my pouch, so in the middle of one long side I sewed out about 8″, then turned and doubled it up and sewed back down. Cut the rope, then sew over the end to finish. I also had a few spots where I missed the rope when sewing. At this point I went back and sewed over these spots again.

Fold the oval in half and mark the center {see my clips}. With the right side of the zipper on the wrong side of the pouch, sew one edge of the zipper to one side of the rope.

The zipper is now sewn on one side like this. Open the zipper and fold the rope over. Line up the second side of the zipper and clip it all along the second edge as shown.

With the zipper open sew on the wrong side of the zipper to attach the second side. I was not able to get all the way inside the zipper by the tab end. {see below for this fix} On the open end I overlapped the zipper take and tucked the strap under this tape and then sewed over to finish.

I may try a separating zipper next time to be able to get into this end, but on this one I used a needle and thread to sew down the end of the zipper I couldn’t get into with the machine. I also then sewed the rope a bit together at the very end.

I love how this turned out and I can’t wait to sew more rope zipper pouches!