Louisa Smith's Swirl Quilt

Isn't this a show-stopper?  I called Louisa Smith to order some templates and books, and we chatted about the "Swirl" template set.  She offered to send me a photo of her sample for this template set.... isn't it gorgeous?  This wall hanging is made of 16 blocks- 4 groups of 4 blocks each.  Each block is made of 3 pieces, cut from the template set.  If you just look at a group of 4 of the blocks (one of the swirls), one color, or color group, is used for the small piece on one block, the middle piece of the next block, and the outside piece of the next block.  Once you see how it works, it's not tricky at all.  Louisa really has an eye for creating amazing art quilts.  Some of the pieces are cut from strip sets and some of the pieces are cut from fabric alone.  Louisa says that she she shows this sample, the Swirl template sets just fly out the door.  I can see why!

A tip I got from Louisa a while back:  For the strip sets, Louisa often uses fabric she really doesn't care for by itself.  Since you only see a small strip of the fabric, the print is much less important than the color.  She looks for COLOR, not for the design the color makes.  That's not the case with the focus fabrics- just for the strip sets.  She finds focus fabrics she loves and then looks for fabrics that go with it based on COLOR.

I always enjoy chatting with Louisa- she's such a nice person.  Check out her blog... I can't believe she has so few followers.  Wouldn't it blow her away if all of you signed up to follow her blog (hint, hint)???  I don't know all of my suppliers personally, but I love marketing and highlighting products designed by really nice people like Louisa. Thanks so much for sharing this photo with me, Louisa!