The Cross-Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverin
The Third Elm Creek Quilts Novel – Sequel to Round Robin
Jan 11, 2009
Jennifer Chiaverini is an American writer and quilter who created a series of books that initially told the story of quilters and their families in Waterford, a small, fictional town in Pennsylvania. She began her literary career as a writing instructor at Penn State and Edgewood College.
Her Elm Creek Quilts series began with The Quilter’s Apprentice, in 2000, and continued with Round Robin, in 2001. The third book in the series shifts focus from the women who run the quilting camp to the women who meet there as campers. The Cross-Country Quilters was published by Plume, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. (ISBN 0-7432-0257-0 for hardcover and 0-452-28308-6 for paperback) in April 2002.
Lives of the Elm Creek Quilters
In The Quilter’s Apprentice, readers were introduced to Sarah McClure and her husband, Matt, who moved into town and began to work with Sylvia Compson at Elm Creek Manor. The first book mainly showed the interactions between Sarah and Sylvia, including Sarah’s learning to quilt and the resolution of the conflicts and personal history that kept Sylvia isolated at the manor.
The second book, Round Robin, describes how the manor that was once Sylvia’s mostly-empty home has become a warm, friendly quilting school. It also told more about the interpersonal relationships within the team of women in Waterford who became the permanent staff and part-time teachers of the quilting classes at the Elm Creek Quilt Camp.
The third book introduces readers to five very different women:
- Julia is an aging actress who needs to learn quilting for an upcoming movie, which she hopes will be the lasting piece of her life’s work.
- Grace is a quilting artist whose pieces have been displayed in museums; however, concerns over her health and her daughter’s future have blocked her inspiration.
- Vinnie is celebrating her eighty-second birthday at the quilting camp and trying to help her grandson recover from being stood-up just before his wedding.
- Megan is still trying to rebuild her life as a single mother after her unfaithful husband left her and their son. Megan won a week at the quilting camp and convinced her online friend, Donna, to join her.
- Donna came, partly to meet Megan in person, but also to stall her daughter’s planning process for a wedding that Donna fears will lead to her daughter leaving school and making other poor decisions.
Megan, Donna, and Vinnie quickly become friends, but it takes longer for Julia and Grace to open up to the friendships and to talk about their fears and concerns honestly with the others. By the last day of quilt camp, the women decide to keep each other accountable for making some life changes by agreeing to a challenge quilt. As the women go their separate ways, they each take a section of the same fabric, with instructions not to begin creating their quilt blocks until they have taken steps to resolve the main issue that concerned them while they were at camp.
The Quilts
In addition to describing quilts in her novels, Jennifer Chiaverini makes each of the quilts created in the Elm Creek Quilts novels. The quilt described in The Cross-Country Quilters can be seen here on her website. As of January 2009, there are thirteen novels in the Elm Creek Quilts series.
Chiaverini has also created a recipe book and three volumes of quilt patterns inspired by the series. Red Rooster, a quilting fabric wholesale company founded in 2002, has also created a quilting fabric line based on the Elm Creek Quilts novels. These fabrics can also be seen on the Elm Creek Quilts website and can be purchased from fabric retailers.
The review of Round Robin can be found here.
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