Beauty is Truth

This is Dawn Blossom, and I must quickly say it's not mine.  Bill Winkler gave me this quilt of his wife Lois to finish.  Lois died in 2002.  This was a quilt she designed and pieced in 2000.  (Please remember that you can click on any of these pictures to see the detail.)

I met Bill 7 years ago when he gave me a quilt top to quilt and bind.  I was honored that he entrusted me with his wife's work, and I did work hard to honor the spirit of that quilt.  At the time he said he had another quilt top.  Just last month he contacted me about it.

Dawn Blossom is a master quilt.  These wonderful radiant New York Beauty blocks are paper-pieced and there is some fabulous layered applique in the quilt.  One look at this quilt, and I knew it was out of my league.  But my trusted long-arm quilters Terri and Frank Karls I knew could handle it.  And sure enough, they did.  Look at some of the detail, both of Lois's work as well as Frank's quilting:

For years I taught John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" in Brit Lit.  And this quilt has given me a new image for the "beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  This quilt by Lois is beautiful.  It is a truth that was a part of her life.  And that is all we need to know.