Create a Stunning Fabric Bead Necklace with Our DIY Tutorial

Discover the art of crafting fabric bead necklaces with our step-by-step DIY tutorial. Get inspired and design your unique jewelry today!

The method I’m sharing today is for upcycling an existing bead necklace with a fabric scarf. The basis is to trim down the width of the scarf to create a strip of fabric, which is sewn into a tube around the beads before being gathered around each bead.

Using this method for fabric bead necklaces means you can have a wide range of sizes of beads. This is because you have no need to tuck the raw edges of the fabric inside the bead hole which requires a large hole. If you are looking to make a necklace from scratch check out So Sew Easy’s Covered Beads Necklace tutorial.

Materials for a fabric bead necklace

Wooden beads necklace
Pretty light weight scarf
Needle and thread
Fabric Scissors

Step 1 – Creating your fabric

Place the fabric scarf around your necklace to determine the size required including your seam allowance.

For my necklace I folded the scarf in half, so had no need to trim the fabric.

Step 2 – Tube of fabric

The next step is to hand-stitch the tube of fabric around the necklace. Naturally, you need the right side of the fabric facing, place the two edges together, with any raw edge folded inwards with the seam allowance.

Step 3 – Gathering the fabric

Starting at the back of the necklace, allowing a good inch from the end of your scarf hand stitch a running stitch around the tube of fabric. By starting at the back your join of the scarf will be at the back of your necklace.

Pull the thread tight gathering the fabric evenly around the end of the bead, then wrap the thread around the gathering and tie off.

Repeat this process between each bead.

Step 4 – Finishing the ends

As you reach round to the back of the necklace carefully trim any excess length in the scarf, tucking it under the original finished edge of the scarf, the original end of the tube.