Labor Day Labors: Russian Bead Stitching

I was first exposed to the look of Russian Beadwork with the Russian Leaf. There was a bead artist in the Boulder Weaver's Guild with me who had made these as earrings. That was back in 2004. I hadn't thought of the Russian Leaf stitch again until I began working on my piece "Clambering." Above is a detail of one of the Russian Leaves I made, and below is an image of the full piece. I found this bead stitch very hard to find on the Internet. There is a version that calls itself a Russian Leaf but is peyote stitch based instead of this Russian stitch. I did finally find a tutorial which is unprintable, but after a few times of doing this stitch, you really get the hang of it and can make it your own. There are no words, only pictures and you can find it HERE. "Clambering" currently hangs on our dinning room, which looks great with the maroon wallpaper behind it. This piece is still a bit of a work in progress. I would like to put quite a few more leaves into it.

The newest Russian Stitch:

In my search to find the Russian Leaf Stitch I came upon this Russian St. Petersburg chain from BeadandButton.com. I had completely forgotten about it until we were cleaning bits of everything in our basement yesterday. I had thought this looked like a cool pattern, printed it, then promptly forgotten about it. This popped up at the right moment as I had been pondering what kind of necklace to make for my Renaissance Festival costume this weekend. This is my first one, thinking that black goes with everything and I could only find black goldstone beads in abundance that were the correct size for the center bead. It V's in the center and has a wonderful lay around the base of your neck. The stone beads down the center give it a nice weight too. This pattern also gives the lariat option. I have never been successful at lariats, but I am going to try one to go with my costume, and fringe it with the Russian Leaves for the bottom weights.

I hope to post a successful outcome sooner than later!!!!

Begining of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" necklace.

I have been listening to the "Flood" album from They Might Be Giants a lot during the painting of our living room. Since I have been wanting to do a bit more sculptural work, I figured I would start small. This is going to be called "Birdhouse in Your Soul." The little green birdhouse is going to be a drop off the bottom of a chain necklace. Hopefully I'll be able to show this at the Old Town Bluesfest in two weekends. I'm going to head off to the bead place in Grand Ledge to check it out and find something that will work with it.

Knitting little hats!

I know a few people having babies (ok, maybe more than a few!) and I decided I needed a fun project for presents. Consequently these are so fun to knit that I'll be putting some into the Grove Gallery Co-op for the holiday season!

These are approx. 16-17 inches around the opening and 7-7 1/2 inches tall. I know they're not newborn size, and they may fit a one-year-old. I still need to snag a child to have them try it on....

They have already been thrown in the washing machine and dryer too! Yay for great cotton. Thanks Woven Art!

New Addition to my Fall/Winter line...

I've been a very productive beader lately and I thought I'd share my newest design. I'm partially focusing on a color theme and hope to edge into some "bigger is better" designs, but I like to keep up the smaller ones for affordability.

I'm calling this new one "Hive 1." I can already see the bee-hive hexagons becoming a trend in some of my upcoming doodles-turned-beadwork, and this will bee the beeginning. :)

The tan color in this piece was originally ordered for the wine glasses that I made for the Guild Exhibit this past August and I fell in love with it. I had to order more and had to make a design that I could utilize it in. It has a faint gold essence to it which made me wander to one of my traditional inspirations: honey bees and their hives. Long story short- my father has kept bee hives since I was little and I love them. I even used this subject matter as my final project/piece in my "Science Art and Spirituality" class in college. It's no surprise that the honeycomb applies so well to peyote stitch.

I hope you love this new one as much as I do, I'm even making earrings to match!

(I apologize for the lousy lighting in these, I'll get better ones...I was just so excited about getting this one out and showing it!)

Jenny Schu. on Etsy.com

I have finally decided to do it, I have been afraid of paypal, shopping carts and processing my work through the internet, but here I go!

Etsy.com is a place to find all sorts of handmade goods and vintage fun. I think I'm going to start doing some of my gift shopping here if I cannot find it at the Grove Gallery Co-op or someplace else local. I have been wandering through Etsy, amazed at the artists, the connections and community. It's a funky, fun, artist kind-of community, I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to browse through!

I have posted 5 pieces up on Etsy.com thus far. I am making a goal to put every brand new piece up for the first four months after I make it. This way it can get some wear-time by me, and exposure to the "critics" first hand. I plan on getting a new piece up at least once a week, so keep an eye out! In the meantime, here are some of the items you can buy right now!

And of course, I have to again thank Katherine for being my model and helping me learn how to photograph my work so that it looks good online!

Greater Lansing Weaver's Guild: Michigan League of Handweaver's Guild Exhibit!

The Michigan League of Handweavers Conference this year had their Guild Exhibits. I was excited to see ours come together in full! The theme was "Golden Reflections" as it is the League's 50th Anniversary.


Karen East came up with the idea of "setting the table" for a celebration! We had picked a handful of specific colors and each weaver involved was weaving something for the table setting. The only requirement is that the colors be broken down via the "Golden Rule" (5/8ths to 3/8ths), the larger portion of the low-lying table items to be in the neutral and golds. The pieces that rise up from the table are to be the opposite, where the larger portion of color is to be the jeweltone.

I worked on bringing pieces up off of the table. Beaded wine glass stems, napkin rings and a last-minute wine bottle lable as to not take away from the table setting but to let the viewer know what Guild's exhibit it was.

Unfortunatly, I did not get any pictures with the lighting pointing correctly on our work, but hopefully someone did!

A HUGE thanks to our weavers!

Marie – place mats & table runner

Sue - tea cozy

Leslie– table runner and placemats

Elaine – placemats

Rose – two towels

Kathy – napkins

Karen - placemats

"Bicycle Race"

I don't actually race when I bike, but I love Queen, so I thought it was only fitting that I name my bicycle bracelet "Bicycle Race" after their song. I finished this one on the way up to visit our friend in L'anse, Upper Peninsula, Michigan. My husband is wonderful and he drives while I bead or work on some fantastic project that fits in my lap.

This is one of the few pieces that really made me realize doing a sample is important. It changed so much from its original idea, but I have worn it a few times and am really enjoying it. I think the general consensus from people is that it's "cute." I'm okay with that. :)

Enjoy!