Beautiful, Easy Macrame Tassel Wall Hanging

This striking DIY tassel wall hanging will have guests asking “Where did you get that?” constantly. The perfect project for doing during a Netflix marathon.

I recently started sprucing up my entryway to give it more life, but every time I went to put something on the walls I froze. The space is so small, everything I wanted to put in it felt overwhelming. So, as usual, I turned to my trusty Pinterest and started looking for something that made sense. I stumbled upon these beautiful tassel wall hangings and I was hooked.

Luckily I’m already well-versed in yarn wall hanging DIYs so getting started would be easy. The fun part about this tassel project is that it can be as colorful or monochromatic as you want! I just added black wainscotting to my white entryway, so I wanted to go darker with my color choices.

Supplies Needed

To complete this tassel wall hanging project, here is what I used:

• 3/4″ wooden dowel (natural, stained, or painted to your preference)
• 3mm single twist cotton string
• at least 1 skein of yarn (I used 5 colors)
• scissors
• wire cat brush
• self-healing cutting mat

Some notes:

• Single twist is VERY important here! You want to be able to brush out the string to get the nice fringe effect, and if it has more than one twist it will be impossible.
• You can have as many (or as few) colors of yarn as you prefer. I originally had more colors planned, but as I was making it I narrowed it down a little. I’ve seen beautiful examples of single color wall hangings and ones with 8+ colors. Its all about how you want it to look.
• The cutting mat is for when you brush out the fringe. The cat brush has sharp metal teeth and *will* scratch most surfaces.

The Process

Cut 4 lengths of cotton string and fold in half over the dowel. Choose your yarn color and lay it next to the string at the approximate length you want to wrap it.

Leaving a tail of the yarn exposed, begin wrapping close to the dowel, being careful not to overlap the yarn too much. You want the wrap to be as smooth as possible to give a nice clean look.

Once you get a feel for how big a loop to leave at the top for the dowel, you can wrap the tassels off of it. This makes it much faster and easier.

Continue wrapping the yarn tightly around the cotton string until there is a small loop left at the bottom. Cut the yarn from the skein and thread the end through the loop.

Grab the piece of yarn at the top of your wrap and slowly pull it up. The loop at the bottom will start to disappear into the wrap, taking the end of the yarn with it. Once the loop and end of the yarn are fully in the wrap, you can cut the top string tight to the wrap. This will secure the yarn without the need for a visible knot.

NOTE: be careful not to pull the loop all the way out the top, as this will begin to unravel the yarn wrap!

Repeat this process until you have the desired amount of tassels for your dowel. The fuller you want the final product to look, the more tassels you’ll need.

I found it easiest to batch-cut the cotton string into lengths ahead of time and then wrap, instead of doing one at a time. I wanted the tassels to vary in length, so I chose 4-5 arbitrary sizes and made several of each to keep it simple.

Construction

After I wrapped all my tassels, I laid them out to see how they would look together with their varying wrap colors and sizes. Fill in any visual gaps you may have.

Begin brushing out the tassels one at a time on the cutting mat. This is a tedious part of the project, but the more you brush them out the better they look. Because the cotton string is twisted, it will want to keep twisting even after you’ve broken up the strands. Keep brushing the tassel from all sides and it will eventually straighten out.

(Be careful not to accidentally scratch yourself with the brush like I did – it really hurts 😅)

Once you’re happy with all the brushed out tassels, you can begin putting them on the dowel. Because my tassels were different sizes, colors, and had different length wraps, I had to be careful to keep it visually balanced. Put a few on the dowel, then hold it away from you to make sure it still looks good. This may take some trial and error.

Finishing Touches

Congrats! You’re almost done with your tassel wall hanging. After everything is arranged to your liking, take a pair of scissors and sharpen up the ends of each one. This will really give it a clean look and help differentiate the tassels from one another.

I wanted my tassels to be pretty tight together, so I pushed some of the fringe more to the front or back of the bunch depending on the section I was working on. This added some fullness and really let the crisp ends stand out.

A fun – unexpected – detail that popped up while I was making this: one of my textured yarns ended up looking like birch tree branches after I wrapped them! I was initially hesitant to use anything but solid yarn colors, but I’m so glad I did.

This is such a fun, easy way of adding some texture and softness to a space. Even though I went darker with my colors, I think it still really warms up the space and makes it feel inviting!

Did you end up making your own version of this project? Make sure you let me know in the comments!