Originally Posted by BKrenning

I figured it out and it's even easier than I suspected. You make the split 9 patch and turn all the darks to the center then you surround that with more split 9 patches and turn those with the darks to make the "sashing". It uses very large blocks comprised of 16 split 9 patch blocks. The first 4 in the center with the darks turned to the center and the remaining 12 blocks are all arranged around the center and turned to form a ring.