How did I "re-design" a design?

	I wanted a star I could intertwine and I also wanted a star that was "interesting" by making one side shorter than the other side. The two blocks below are examples of what I had in mind. The one on the left is the "Woven Ribbon" and the one on the right is an uneven star inspired by Doreen Speckman and her "Peeky and Spike" blocks. This one is from her quilt "Sea of Stars". There are many traditional blocks based on this design but without the long and short spikes.
I like the woven ribbon block but it would have to be set "in-line". I wanted something "off-set" which ment one spike of the star had to be shorter then the other.	I liked the uneven star at ;eft , however the thoughts of matching all those points from the center "square in a square"turned me off to this pattern. I wanted my star block with a plain center and *no matching*.
To make the unevern star off-set and interlock, you have to stagger the blocks and sew them together row by row. Too much trouble for me!	..... So I isolated the design elements that would make a star in one block. If I colored the upper left and lower right corner solid and squished it together, I would get what I wanted..
Here is the end result of a little fussing and some creative thinking. I drafted just the outlined area in the graphic above. As you can see, I could have used pattern (a) as the block, but I wanted something with a little less "space" between the blocks. Also notice that the division lines of (a) are not evenly spaced. The area in the center is larger than the top and sides. So what I did to re-design the design was to even up the block divisions and that squished it all together (b) and a galaxy is born!
OPTION: Now, later in a quilt magazine, I saw this pattern as "original" (well, we are all creative and who knows who was first!)  and the designer did include the half-square triangle in the corner of the block as in diagram "a" above.  It gave an extra element to the design, so if you think you would like that look, just draw the diagonal line on your foundation pattern and piece them together in the pattern. It works!	I hope this little design lesson helps you be a little more creative in your re-designing process. Give it a try, and you may create your own super nova.
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