Do you know how to make a beaded crochet rope necklace? I recently found some, I made years ago and I remember, how much fun they were to make and how pretty they got.


They are perfect for Summer crafts and you can find an incredible amount of fantastic patterns for the beaded crochet ropes.

Learn How To

The first rounds are confusing and they might make you incredibly frustrated. I sometimes start over again and again - especially if I crochet with one color beads. Once you got the first rows, the rest of the beaded crochet necklace is easy to make.

It can be difficult to find good tutorials, but I've hand-picked some, that can help you get started. The tutorials I've found are clever and use different colored beads.

Also notice that some tutorials start with a row of regular chains (without using beads yet) and make a circle with this, while other tutorials will get right on to using the beads.

You will need:

• beads (see later about beads)
• thin crochet hook, maybe around 2mm (US 0, UK14) The smaller your beads, the tinier the hook.
• a strong thread in a color that matches the beads (or a contrasting color for the first sample)
• needle to put the beads on the thread
• Optional: end caps and a lock - or be creative.

You can practice with huge beads like HAMA beads for children. It will make it easier for you to see, what you are doing. Use a 3mm (US C/D, UK11) hook or likewise.

Animation Tutorial

If you are impatient, I found this simple page on Fiosarterapia that explains the different steps with only 5 animations. The first animation shows how to make the first round of stitches including beads. The other animations show the 4 steps you need for doing sc with each bead:

1. Insert hook
2. push the already attached bead to the side
3. make the next bead ready on the loose end
   (push the loose end over the already attached bead)
4. finalize your sc

Photo/Image Tutorials

Fusion Beads has good and lots of images. Just don't get paralyzed when you see the number of images. Step 1-10 is enough for a good start. Step 16 shows how to join the ends of the first row to make a circle, and then you might only need to look at steps 17-19 to know how to do all the rest of the beads.

Making Beaded Jewelry got great photos and text. Here is how to crochet over beads (for the first round), and for the rest of the beaded rope, follow the How to Crochet Beaded Ropes tutorial.

Video Tutorials

A great and very straightforward video tutorial is made by Beadaholic. The actual tutorial starts around 3:15.

Ann Benson made a detailed youtube video tutorial that starts with info about what you need and a couple of great tips too. Around 3:12 the 'real' tutorial starts by showing how to make the first row of stitches. She uses nice animations as well as short videos to show the details.

Finalize the Necklace

Only some tutorials show how to end the rope. You can do this, just like you would end another crocheted project. Make a slip stitch, cut the thread and pull it through. You decide whether to attach end caps or not. There are many options. Be creative.

About Beads

The more perfect beads you have, the easier to get a perfect outcome. The beads have to be 'perfect' in the way that they should be very similar in size and shape. Because when you are new at this you might crochet pretty tight and then uneven beads will give you a messy looking rope. When you get more advanced, you can mix bead sizes in a controlled way to make more complex ropes.

Useful Links 

When you are familiar with the rope technique, I found some good links on biser.info. It is a Russian page, but with lots of great photos. It will bring you joy and hours of work:

• A collection of patterns and images of beaded crochet ropes.
• Photo tutorial on how to split a crochet rope into two.
• Photo tutorial on how to make a twisted spiral shape on the crochet rope (use Google Translate to get the whole meaning)