Garden Maze Tutorial

Garden Maze Setting

I like to use a setting called Garden Maze for a little extra interest in a quilt where the blocks are rather simple.  Here’s how I do it.  My cousin brought me eighteen embroidered blocks which her mother had done years ago.  Her mother died recently, and Kathy wanted these re-done as a keepsake, and she trusted me with them.  We decided to make two small 9-block wall hangings with them.

 

The first step was to square them up.  She had taken apart the quilt they were in, and neatly pressed them, but they were not all the same size, and some were a bit wonky.  

Once we had the blocks arranged in the desired order, it was on to the sashing.  Though Garden Maze looks complicated, it is really a pieced sashing which is not difficult to do.  The first step was to cut the red strips.  Since these were 8” blocks, I used a ½” finished (cut 1”) strip.  These were sewn first to the sides, and then to the top and bottom of the blocks.

The white sashing strips were cut 2” wide and the length of the bordered blocks.  Then I cut small squares 1 ¼” (4 per sashing strip).   Also I cut 2” squares of the red to use as cornerstones, and set them aside for now.

The 1 ¼” squares were stitched to each corner of the sashing strip across the diagonal of the square. (I really did not need to mark the diagonal before stitching because of the small size.  On a larger piece, I would have marked the stitching line on the diagonal.)  If you are familiar with making flying geese, the process is the same.

 

Excess fabric trimmed back to a ¼” seam allowance. 

Once I had the sashing strips made, it was onto the design wall with them.  

Then the cornerstones were placed on the design wall as well. 

 

Here it is all stitched together.

The quilt top was completed with the addition of a ½” white border and a 2” red border.

The quilting was rather simple, meandering around the embroidered motifs, and one of my favorite motifs for the borders and sashing, a heart vine.

 

 

Kathy loved the quilts, by the way.