Offset Block #3

Try Using

Offset Nine Patch Blocks

To Launch A Design

This is the 3rd in a series of posts in which I am trying to convince you that if you start with a simple design element (in this case a Nine Patch block) and just fool around with it you will find yourself creating novel designs.

The 1st post was Start With Something Simple (3 January 2011). I took 3 Nine Patch blocks offset them slightly then repeated the combination to create wiggly lines. If you start playing with them you'll find there are a lot of things you can do with wiggly lines.

The 2nd post was What Can You Do With Nine Patch Blocks If You Offset Them? (5 January 2011) I offset 8 Nine Patch blocks to create a kind of circle. You might want to try playing with more blocks to create larger circles, or even overlapping circles.

Today I'm going to try making a very primitive galaxy spiral. You might try to see if you can improve on this idea. I'll bet you can.

What I've done so far in these 3 posts is to take a simple design element (a Nine Patch block) and use it to create a more complex design element (a wiggly line, a circle, a spiral). It's easy to do. Try playing with  Nine Patch blocks; you'll find you can create many more such elements.

The next step in the design process is to take these new elements, play with them, modify them and combine them with other elements to create a quilt design. The next step turns out to be just as easy as the first.