Cross stitch pattern of a Byzantine 8 pointed star based on an ancient textile fragment from 240 – 410CE. You can find the original on the Louvre website. Head over to my Patreon to download the PDF and PNG files.

Grid Size: 76W x 76H
Design Area: 5.29″ x 5.29″ (74 x 74 stitches)
Colors: 1

My Patron, Samantha Styers, is a professional villain, a specialist that other villains will call in when they have a job. Samantha charges top dollar for infiltrating heavily guarded buildings. They have sticky hands and feet to climb smooth surfaces and their skin can blend into any background. Get in, get the goods, and get out, and no one even knows.

I’ve been really into Celtic knots lately after a one of my Patrons shared some patterns with me. I absolutely love the overlapping lines and shapes, but they’re kind of hard to get my head around. I found this textile fragment in the free digitized collection of artworks that the Louvre has on its website. I just couldn’t let such a beautiful design waste way without trying to bring it back into a usable state. It’s not an exact copy. I’m not that skilled of an artist that I can replicate an ancient textile stitch for stitch, but the idea is still there. I know I made it look a little East Asian, but this sort of eight pointed star is pretty popular in Byzantine art so you see it a lot.

I’m so excited to be inspired by the past. I might have to do more of these at some point!

I really want to see someone stitch this out in gold!