Quilt Notes: According to Wikipedia, "a formal garden in the Western gardening tradition is a neat and ordered garden laid out in carefully planned geometric and symmetric lines." Maggie Malone's 5,500 QUILT BLOCK DESIGNS illustrates several formal garden patterns including this 9-patch version. Barbara Brackman's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PIECED QUILT PATTERNS (which uses three different fabrics, prints for the center square and parallelograms and then solid background triangles), traces it to the Farm Journal, publishing since 1877. The design produces a pinwheel in the secondary pattern, so it helpful to alternate color schemes from block to block in order retain the design's beautiful boxy feel. Other GARDEN designs at the site include, BUTTERFLY IN THE GARDEN, DRUNKARD'S GARDEN, and FLOWER BED.