Today's Tangle - Exinside

This pattern, which is called "Exinside", looks like it might be complicated to draw. It's not though. The step-out breaks it down into simple steps and it all comes together quite easily. You don't even have to worry that you've drawn some of the lines a little too long or short because they can be adjusted later as needed. The pattern is by Sandra Strait and it is posted HERE on her blog.

I have one tip for drawing this design. In the first step you're supposed to draw a cross-like shape but no info is given as to how to accomplish this. When I draw it, I start with four tiny dots that represent the four corners of a small square as you can see in the mini step-out below. They can be very close to each other as I drew mine or farther apart. It all depends on how big you want the final shape to be. Next I draw for straight lines some distance out from each pair of dots as shown below. They can be any distance away and any length as long as they are longer than the space between the nearest pair of dots. Next, connect each pair of dots to the ends of each of the corresponding lines as shown and you'll end up with a cross shape.

I drew the tile below first but wasn't happy with the muted colors so after that I drew the colorful tile at the top of this post. As you can see, you can have sharp corners on your shapes or rounded ones.