Galaxies

Did you figure out how Galaxies was made?  It is all paper pieced, but you already figured that out.  It is made from several major shapes, which are broken down into a log cabin type design using triangles instead of rectangles.  When the shapes are put together they create a 60º wedge.  Put the wedges together and you have a hexagon.

I think I would call this an advanced design for quilters.  There are a lot of difficult seams to match and points to stitch correctly.  It takes time.  The top black pieces are all part of a triangle shape so it is made of little paper pieced triangles like the colored part.  The side black pieces are large pieces of fabric - no seams.

Coloring in the little triangles is what makes the design move.  All of the triangle shapes have mirror images of each other, either horizontal or vertical, and with the same or different coloration.  The hexagon and pentagon are just what they are.  However, on each side of the pentagon notice the rhomboid shapes (skewed rectangles or parallelograms with unequal sides and angles).  They have been colored differently from each other to give movement to the hexagon.  They also create an unusual black shape at the bottom because some of the little triangle pieces are cut from black fabric.  Below is the the complete drawing of the design.  Add black fabric for the corners and you have a square quilt.

Illustrator drawing of Galaxies.

See last week's post to see the actual, finished quilt.

You can take a design like this, color it differently and have a totally different looking quilt.  Tons of fun!  I always color one wedge and then let Illustrator rotate it around the center to see the complete design.  Then I live with it for awhile, present it to my husband, incorporate his thoughts and try again.  This generally goes on for days, but it is fun to have him involved in the design process.  He has good ideas.

TIP:  What can I say?  Have fun.  The design process takes time.  It needs to percolate through your days and your nights.  It is easy to make changes at this stage.