Welcome to a new lovely Beaded Floral Tutorial. For the next few weeks, I am going to explore a vital part of floral beadwork, the Leaf.
In this post I will demonstrate how to make this peyote based sculpted leaf.
I have experimented with several tutorials on YouTube to see what works and what doesn’t. As you may know there are lots of tutorials shared by the international community. Some are easy to understand and some are… shall we say not that easy.
I found a tutorial for this style leaf by Pamira White but no matter how I tried, I could not figure out what was happening at the bottom of the leaf. So did I give up? Obviously not, since I am here today.
I took the basic start and her approach to the top of the leaf and I winged it from there. I added a few square stitches into the mix and created a few decreases and was able to come up with a viable tutorial for you today.
Materials List
Very few beads are required for this project today. Two colors of 11/0 seed beads, a needle and beading thread are all we need.
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The techniques used today are Peyote stitch, Herringbone stitch and Square stitch.
Sculpted Leaf
Use an olivine bead for a stop bead and a few feet of thread on your needle. Pick up eight more A beads.
Skip over the last two beads picked up and sew back through the next A.
Add three Peyote stitches using A beads. Pick up one, skip one and sew through the next.
Reversing direction, pick up an A sew up through the first sticking out bead. Repeat this step to the top of the bead work.
Now a Herringbone stitch. Pick up two A beads and sew down the very next bead.
Continue with single bead peyote using the A beads down to the end of the row.
As you add the las bead sew through the sticking out bead plus the bead below on the diagonal.
Turn around by simply sewing up through the bead beside the one you are exiting at the bottom.
Add four peyote stitches using A beads along this side of the leaf.
Now another Herringbone stitch. Pick up two A beads and sew down the very next bead.
Add four peyote stitches using A beads along this side of the leaf.
Take note of the position of the working thread. We are missing a bead along the bottom edge at this point. We will have to maneuver through the beads and add a bead to balance out the work .
Sew up through the bead next to the one you are currently exiting.
Now sew down through the next bead next in line.
Coming back towards your original position, sew down into the bottom bead on the edge.
Pick up a bead and sew up through the bead next to the edge bead as shown.
This is what the work should look like at this point. Next we have to get back into position to work the next row.
Pass down the sticking out bead on the edge and the newly added bead at the bottom.
Pick up a bead and sew through the edge bead again. Take four more peyote stitches.
Add the two bead Herringbone stitch at the top and take four peyote stitches down this side of the leaf.
Take note of the position of the working thread. We are missing a bead along the bottom edge at this point. We will have to add a bead once more. This time I will show you how to add it using Square stitch.
Pick up a bead and sew up through the closest bead on the bottom.
Pass up through the outer bead on the diagonal.
Pass down through the bead beside the one your currently exiting and one below on the diagonal (the bead beside the newly added one).
Sew up into the newly added bead.
Using all A beads, take five peyote stitches a herringbone stitch at the top and five stitches down the other side of the leaf.
Now we will do a decrease before adding the next row.
Sew up through the bead next to the one you are exiting at the bottom of the bead work.
Sew up into the sticking out bead at the edge on the diagonal.
Take five peyote stitches still using the Color A beads. At the top take the usual two bead herringbone stitch.
The work will really begin to cup noticeably now. Take the five stitches on the other side of the leaf.
To decrease, sew up through the bead next to the bead you are exiting.
Sew down the next bead over plus one more down on the diagonal towards the edge.
Sew up the bead next to the one you are exiting plus one more on the diagonal to the edge.
Work one last round using the Color A beads. Five peyote, one herringbone and five peyote.
Work the decrease following the steps above one last tim to the bead shown.
The final round is worked using the Color B beads. Take five peyote stitches, one herringbone stitch using a single bead and the final five peyote stitches.
Noice how beautifully the leaf is sculpted.
Sew on the diagonal to the bottom to the tail thread. Tie two knots with the two threads. Move away from the know and cut the threads.
I hope working on this you have enjoyed lovely little leaf and will find lots of ways to use it in your projects. Next time I will show you a leaf made using brick stitch technique.