Tuesday, January 23, 2007

How I did it...

I've received several requests for information on how I expanded the Prairie Star pattern.

It's not an easy answer, but if you're willing to play, I'll tell you how. I started in Microsoft Word, but I've found Excel actually works a little better.

If you don't already have the Drawing toolbar visible on your screen (mine sits at the bottom of the screen and has buttons for Autoshape, Fill Color, etc.) then goto the View menu, select Toolbars, and Drawing.

I used the Autoshape feature to create a diamond shape that was about the right proportions. I then just kept copying and pasting that shape, so my proportions were always the same. You can use the rotate functions in the Drawing toolbar to situate your shape the way you need it. You can change the fill colors, etc. Once you have a group of shapes the way you want them, you can group them together and copy that whole group so you can continue the pattern. (If you get stuck, try Help. They can tell you how to use these features.)

It was alot of just playing with the drawing features to find out what worked best and going with that. One thing that was nice about Excel was that I could adjust the size of the columns and rows so it was a bit like graph paper on the screen. Once you get into it a bit, you'll get the hang of it and you'll be creating patterns all over the place. lol

Good luck! :)

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