Melitastitches4fun's Blog

Kathy has framed Byzantium. It looks fantastic, and we’re both happy Byzantium has a home!

Note: Gifted to Kathy in March 2025.

It took a while to do 92 Jessicas and fill each one in Byzantium by Lorene Salt, but it’s worth it! It turned out great.

I’ll probably recreate the 16 spoke center for myself. Although that would be adding to my list of 2025 goals, and I was trying to avoid that!

My cousin Kathy picked it up yesterday, and she absolutely loves it. She’s right. It looks better in person. I’m glad Byzantium has found a good home!

It’s been two months since I last worked on Byzantium by Lorene Salt. Time flies by!

There are 6 purple wavy crescents and one Ray on each side. I love how the crescents nestle up next to each other in the center of the 3 crescents to create a denser area and tapers off on either side. The movement and weight variation are visually interesting.

I completed the 4 corner and 4 center side Ray variation stitches before tackling the alternating blue and purple ones.

Next up are quite a few Jessicas.

Well, I started in the center, filling in around the center motif, skipping the next area, filling in the next area, skipping the next area, and stitching the Smyrna border. I made sure to start the next length of Wildflowers in the same color as where I ended in order to maintain the color flow of the skein by always cutting in a stretch of purple. I thought random colors would be better because too much color matching might actually detract from those lovely swirls and corner mock Chilly Hollow motifs. 

This part was almost finished during the baseball wildcard playoff games. It really worked up quite easily once I got into the rhythm. When I did get off a couple of times, I saw it quickly. That wider area with the Jessicas is probably going to require more concentration.

I do love a good counted piece and seeing it take shape. At least so far, I prefer completing all of one stitch rather than a quarter at a time.

The center Rhodes diagrammed by Lorene Salt was not preferred by at least one of her testers and a second option was provided. Since both options interfered with the north, east, south, and west spokes, I created my own.

Next I worked on the color-matched areas that I had started in class because they seemed the trickiest. Finding the matched lengths actually was harder than the stitching but worth it! That took a few hours during class. I had made a knot at the end of the thread where I wanted to anchor in order to start each large crescent and end up with a match when stitched. That made picking up where I left off easy.

Finishing the last of the borders allows another anchoring area. Very smart of Lorene to work these into the design.

Did you notice my coordinated needle minder?! I made this one in a class with Michelle Arsenault. The heart needle minder accompanying Heart Swirls was one I made from Michelle’s class, too.

Hmmm. Where to go next? I made a mistake by adding up the number of different motifs that are coming up. There are 508 Smyrnas, 90 partial eyelets, 49 Jessicas, 40 tied sheafs, 26 crescents, 4 Sprats Heads, and some 4-way Continental. Whew!

How would you proceed? All of each stitch? A quarter at a time?

I put in the two tent borders to be ready for our second class after dinner last night since it was still early, and I was too full to lie down. But, I must have misheard because we counted off the outer border. Oh well!

In class, I spent time color matching threads, cutting, and stitching the large swirl and corner mock Chilly Hollow stitch. Worth it!

I enjoyed Lorene Salt and am enjoying stitching this piece. I’m surprised that the stitches weren’t that complicated. You do have to count. Check and double-check.

Class went really well. Only 2 minor errors on basting which I caught as I double checked when I stitching the diagonal satin border.

The 16-spoke Spiro cluster worked up in the afternoon.

Five us enjoyed lunch at Bankski’s at 12th and Main.

Sauerbraten dinner at Grünauer’s was delicious but too much food. The leftovers would have been great if we were home. But, not at a hotel. Oh well.