It’s the end of another week, and we’re featuring a quilting novel for today’s Fiber Arts Fiction Friday! This week we return to the beautiful Elm Creek Quilt Camp with book three, Cross-Country Quilters, in Jennifer Chiaverini’s Elm Creek Quilts series.
Synopsis (Story Details Below, But No Major Spoilers)
It’s summertime and Elm Creek Quilt Camp is in full swing! New campers are arriving for a week of quilting, personal reflection, and friendship and we’re going to follow the lives of five of them.
- Julia is an aging actress who needs to learn how to quilt in order to keep her role in a new motion picture, as she promised the director that she already knew how to quilt.
- Meghan won a trip to camp for an amazing miniature quilt, and is looking forward to finally meeting her internet friend, Donna. It’s Meghan’s first time being away from her son since her divorce and she’s anxious about the trip.
- Donna is excited to meet Meghan for the first time in real life, as well as gain some perspective on her daughter’s newly announced engagement. She’s trying to embrace her future son-in-law, but can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right.
- Grace is an award-winning quilter who is looking to regain her sewing inspiration. She’s also hiding a secret about a serious health condition from all but her immediate family.
- And Vinnie, an Elm Creek Quilt Camp regular, is celebrating her birthday and looking for ways to bring happiness to the lives of those around her, especially her grandson Adam.
As the week progresses, the five women find themselves joining together to help each other not only with their quilting projects, but with their real world challenges as well. As camp comes to a close, they each take a piece of the same fabric so that each one can create a challenge block that they’ll sew into a group quilt at next year’s camp. The challenge block comes with a catch, however; they aren’t allowed to begin work on it until they have made progress on their own personal challenge.
The rest of the book follows the lives of each of the women in turn. Julia returns to Hollywood, where she goes head-to-head with the director of the film. Meghan works to help her young son heal after the divorce, and navigates a new relationship of her own. Donna tries to accept her future son-in-law, but her mama bear comes out when her daughter is threatened. Grace is forced to face the realities of an illness that she’s been hiding from almost everyone, while reconnecting with her ex-husband. Vinnie learns that while you can coax love and happiness along, each person is still responsible for making their own choices.
The year passes by and the next summer the five Cross-Country Quilters once again meet up at Elm Creek Quilt Camp. Each has completed her challenge block and they work together to sew the quilt top together and hand-quilt it. They know that even though they may live thousands of miles apart from each other, they have formed friendships that will see them through thick and thin.
My Review
At first, I was a little sad that this book wasn’t about the original Elm Creek quilters that we met in the first two books, The Quilter’s Apprentice and Round Robin. Those women are present in the book, but really as background characters as they run the camp session. However, as I got deeper into the story, I found myself really enjoying the opportunity to get to know these five women who came to quilt camp in the first place. It’s clear that the lessons from the Elm Creek quilters made an impact on them, not only in terms of their quilting but also in terms of building a support network of other women.
The author did a great job of letting each woman’s story be heard while still keeping them connected to each other. The women had to navigate the challenges of cross-country communication which was a challenge for both Vinnie and Julia who didn’t have email addresses. They also each had to deal with setbacks along the way, making each of their stories feel realistic.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I really enjoyed this quilting novel. It was fun to learn more about the types of women who attend Elm Creek Quilt Camp and really think about the positive impact that the Elm Creek Quilters had on the quilters who attended camp. It was also a joy to learn how the women faced their challenges; some were ready to face them head on, but others needed a little extra coaxing and support. I’m excited to turn to the next novel in the series (The Runaway Quilt) and continue my journey with the Elm Creek Quilt series.
Want to grab a copy of Cross-Country Quilters for yourself? Purchase it on Amazon here.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
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