Customer Reviews

The Cross-Country Quilters (Elm Creek Quilts Series #3)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Cross Country Quilters is the first book by Jennifer Chiaverini I have read. I also know nothing about quilting. Quilting knowledge is not a prerequisit to reading and enjoying this book. Much like Julia, the newest quilter at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, I was slowly drawn into the world of material,color, and design. During a summer session of quilt camp a unlikely grouping of friends takes root, and they promise to continue their friendship through designing and completing their own block of a challange quilt. They plan to meet the following summer to piece the blocks together. The five women, Julia, Vinnie, Megan, Grace and Donna return home not only to face the challanges of the quilt blocks. They also must face the continuing challanges of their busy lives with work, family, careers, and illness. At times it seems that each woman has too much to deal with, without worrying about the planned meeting the following summer. Just as quilting combines materials which don't seem to have much in common, Jennifer Chiaverini, using the theme of quilting and friendship, intertwines these women's varied lives with warmth and believability. I look forward to reading the other books by this author.

Chiaverini has again written a beautiful, heartwarming story covering the lives of friends, and how women can come together over objects they create from their own hands.

An unlikely circle of women meet at Elm Creek Manor for a week-long quilt camp. As these women begin working on various projects, they realize that they are all experiencing different stresses in their lives. The women experience illness, trouble with their children and grandchildren, and work difficulties. None are extraordinary hardships - they are what women everywhere face on a daily basis. In order to help each other with their problems, the women decide to work on a challenge quilt - however, they are not permitted to start on their square until they have addressed the problems afflicting their lives.

As the book progresses, each woman is followed on her individual journey. The stories are perhaps predictable, but are told with such loving care that the reader cannot help but find themselves cheering each of these lovely people on.

The only disappointment about Cross-Country Quilters is that little time was devoted to Elm Creek Manor itself. Through Chiaverini's last two books I have grown to love the Elm Creek Quilters, and was looking forward to reading about their latest triumphs.

Overall, Cross-Country Quilters is a wonderful read and is well-recommended.

I was disappointed when I read the review of this book to find that it did not center around the original characters, but was pleasantly surprised to see how the new storyline tied in with the old. It was actually my new favorite until I read "The Runaway Quilt" (fourth in the series). I love the descriptions of the quilting in these books. They always inspire me to get back to work on my own projects! The storyline in this one made it hard to put down because I wanted to know how each quilter's dilemma was resolved. The Cross Country Quilters is a wonderful addition to this series.

Everyone familiar with the hobby respects the famous quilting retreat at Elm Creak Manor in Waterford, Pennsylvania. Strangers come there to camp and life long friendships have formed such as the accidental meeting of the Cross-Country Quilters who vow to return next year.

The group consists of people from a wide variety of lifestyles. Long time attendee octogenarian Vinnie has been at Elm Creek every year since it opened. Julia the actress needs to learn the art for a part. Award winning Grace suffers from a nasty medical diagnosis that has left her with a quilter's mental block. Megan earned a week at the camp as a prize from a quilting magazine and is accompanied by her cyber-friend Donna, escaping from a daughter that is worrying her to death. Even after the camp ends, the participants stay in contact encouraging, boosting, and cheering each one's triumphs.

Jennifer Chiaverini has written a special book that demonstrates the resiliency and courage of an extraordinary group of determined women. Although Elm Creek manor is not the star of the story line, it serves as they catalyst that generates the development of subplots into a cohesive tale. THE CROSS COUNTRY Quilters is a powerful women's mainstream fiction at its literary best.

Harriet Klausner

Every year quilters from around the country gather at the Elm Creek Quilt Camp. This installment of the series features five women who bring with them hurts from their past. There is an aging movie star, a woman who is worried about her grandson's single state, a single mother who is encountering difficulties in raising her young son, a woman who is frightened by her doctor's diagnosis, and the mother of a young woman who is involved in a troubling relationship. As they participate in the camp's activities, they improve their quilting skills, but more importantly, they form a close friendship where they feel free to share their concerns with the others in the group. They decide to make a challenge quilt in the year before the next camp. Each of them declares the personal challenge that she has taken on and each one agrees to create part of a quilt which will signify the overcoming of the challenge. The book follows their lives as they are together and apart, and shows that quilting is a simile for the friendship which binds their separate lives together. This is a satisfying and heartwarming book.

While I agree with the other customer reviews regarding the friendships of the quilters and becoming involved in the story, I am appalled that Ms. Chiaverini apparently did little or no research of Multiple Sclerosis.

Although the story points out that MS is not contagious and describes the unfeeling/ignorant ways people react to Grace, the story also presents and reinforces myths about MS.

Grace is described as someone under a sentence of death and is told immediately after diagnosis that her condition will deteriorate--probably quickly-and that MS is fatal. The story then reinforces by repeating that Grace has little time, and by having her body deteriorate.

MS is not fatal.

MS causes multiple areas of inflammation and scarring of the myelin in the brain and spinal cord. Myelin is the tissue that covers and protects our nerve fibers. When the myelin is inflamed or scarred, nerve "communication" is disrupted. People with MS experience varying degrees of neurological impairment and resultant symptoms depending upon the location and extent of the scarring. In other words, some people have few problems, some have many. Some people have no pain, some have a bit, some have intermittent pain... Some MS goes into remission, some progresses gradually, some progresses rapidly, some stays on a plateau.

Diagnosis of MS does not provide information of the way the disease will progress--or if it will, nor can it be known how that body will react to the various treatments.

For accessible information, read When the Road Turns..Stories by and About People with MS by Margot Russell, which contains biographies and personal accounts from people with various types of MS experiences, and/or go to www.nmss.org, www.msfacts.org, www.msneighborhood.com, www.multsclerosis.org

It was wonderful!! My sister, Susie, told me about the books by Jennifer Chiaverini, said they were so special. She was right! I have just finished the Quilters Apprentice and have just this minute ordered Round Robin!! I can't wait to get it and dive right in. I have been quilting for about 15 years and it was exciting to read a book that named a lot of the squares I have used in my own quilts. Keep the great books coming!! I will have them all for my own collection!

The Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini is the third book in the Elm Creek Quilts book. As I am a stickler for reading series in the order they're written, I did find after reading this book, that it can certainly be read alone. As I said in my review of Round Robin, The Cross Country Quilters is another title which is very reminiscent of How to Make an American Quilt.

Elm Creek Manor is now a quilt camp where primarily women from all over come to spend a week learning more about their interest in quilting. Offering lessons in all sorts of techniques, for some the camp also provides bonding and camaraderie. And in this book five very different women from different parts of the country meet and learn much more than quilting as they sort through their lives and in some cases eventually make life altering changes in their lives too. Pledging to meet a year later at quilt camp these women pledge to make a block for a quilt they will piece together the following year. And the block they construct and sew will have to reflect can only be started once they begin this change.

The end, while predictable as these people's lives fall into place, is sweet and reaffirms the power of friendship. I enjoyed the first two books and look forward to read the others in this series. And now I just hear that her newest book will be published in the spring of 2005. Not only that but I just met a quilter and am thinking of trying my hand at one. This book certainly inspired me to try something new. As I always say a book is like a friend or interest, just waiting to be found. And the Elm Creek Quilts books are certainly worthwhile reads which I do recommend to all who read this review.

Author is a good story teller who knows quilting and quilters. I couldn't put the book down and must read all the others in the series.

I very much enjoyed this book. It was a quiet, gentle novel that didn't require too much thought--you just cuddle up and enjoy the ride. Yes, it is easy to predict the outcome of each individual story, but the pleaure of this book is watching the friendship between the women grow and develop, and watch how each women continues to care deeply for each of her friends while dealing with her own problems. It is a testament to true friendship, and the bonds that women can form across miles, race, and age. A perfect book to snuggle up with on a blustery afternoon. I can't wait for more from Chiaverini!