The Quilter's Apprentice (Elm Creek Quilts Series #1) [Paperback]

Jennifer Chiaverini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2000

"A heartwarming story of relationships that, like pieces of a quilt, can be connected with discord or with harmony."-Sandra Dallas, author of The Persian Pickle Club

After moving with her husband, Matt, to the small college town of Waterford, Pennsylvania, Sarah McClure struggles to find a fulfilling job. In the meantime, she agrees to help seventy-five-year-old Sylvia Compson prepare her family estate, Elm Creek Manor, for sale. As part of her compensation, Sarah is taught how to quilt by this cantankerous elderly woman, who is a master of the craft.

During their lessons, Mrs. Compson reveals how her family was torn apart by tragedy, jealousy, and betrayal, and her stories force Sarah to face uncomfortable truths about her own alienation from her widowed mother. As their friendship deepens, Mrs. Compson confides in Sarah the truth about why she wants to sell Elm Creek Manor. In turn, Sarah seeks a way to bring life and joy back to the estate so Mrs. Compson can keep her home-and Sarah can keep her cherished friend. The Quilter's Apprentice teaches deep lessons about family, friendship, and sisterhood, and about creating a life as you would a quilt: with time, love, and patience, piecing the miscellaneous and mismatched scraps into a beautiful whole.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Quilting is the overall motif of this leisurely paced, predictable first novel, set in a small Pennsylvania college town. Young Sarah McClure, an accountant tired of number-crunching, has accompanied her landscaper husband to the area, but she soon finds that jobs are few and uninteresting. Discouraged, she agrees to do housework on a temporary basis at Elm Creek Manor, a mansion on the edge of town. The manor's occupant, Sylvia Compson, an embittered master quilter and widow in her 70s, has returned to the family home following the death of her sister to ready it for sale. Sylvia's story, told with increasingly long flashbacks and confidences during the private quilting lessons she agrees to give Sarah, reveal a tormented family history of wealth and privilege ruined by tragedy. Sarah's sympathy for Sylvia is juxtaposed against the innuendoes she hears at meetings of the Tangled Web Quilters, a group of local women who mistrust Sylvia. Meant to be a sympathetic catalyst, Sarah comes across as whiny instead of plucky, and the book is burdened by far too many descriptions of her job interviews and subsequent insecurities. Chiaverini is at her best when describing the manor and its once grand history, but her prose is merely serviceable and the dialogue is stilted. Sure to be compared to Whitney Otto's How to Make an American Quilt, this novel fails to connect on an emotional level. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Sarah McClure and her husband, Matt, have just moved to Waterford, PA. While Matt finds work with a landscape company, Sarah, an accountant, wants to try something new. With no leads and no offers, she is depressed and frustrated. When elderly Sylvia Compson asks Sarah to help prepare her family estate for sale, Sarah finds new friends, and Sylvia, a master craftswoman, agrees to teach Sarah how to quilt. Sarah's new relationship inspires an exchange of confidences; she learns about Sylvia's "family skeletons" while facing her own difficult relationship with her mother. Patiently piecing scraps of material, the quilters explore both women's lives, stitching details and solutions together slowly but with courage and strength. Chiaverini, a quilter herself, has pieced together a beautiful story in this first novel. Sarah and Matt are a charming couple who prove that problems really do have solutions. Women?daughters, sisters, and mothers?will enjoy it. Recommended.?Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Plume (April 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452281725
• ISBN-13: 978-0452281721
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jennifer Chiaverini lives with her husband and two sons in Madison, Wisconsin. In addition to the sixteen volumes in the Elm Creek Quilts series and four books of quilt patterns inspired by the novels, she designs the Elm Creek Quilts fabric line from Red Rooster Fabrics. For more information about Jennifer, please visit her website at www.elmcreek.net .

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cozy and Charming, January 7, 2003

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Quilter's Apprentice (Elm Creek Quilts Series #1) (Paperback)

The first in the "Elm Creek Quilters" series, "The Quilter's Apprentice" is a sweet story about a naive young woman, Sarah, who relocates to a small Pennsylvanian town when her landscape architect husband gets a new job. As Matt works to restore the gardens and grounds at Elm Creek, a dilapidated old mansion, Sarah, struggling to find a job in her field, finds herself instead as paid helper to the mansion's acerbic owner, Mrs. Compson.

At first thorny and uncomfortable, the relationship between Mrs. Compson and Sarah slowly unfolds as the two women create a quilt--Sarah's first. The metaphor of the quilt's patches creating a whole, just as Mrs. Compson's snippets of stories create a picture of her life, is nothing new, and perhaps a bit awkwardly handled in this first novel. It is noticeable in dialogue that nobody in real life would speak--and of the coincidences that probably would never occur.

Nevertheless, this book is a keeper, and I look forward to the next in the series. I personally love quilts, although I have never quilted. I found the slow creation of the story's (and Sarah's) quilt fascinating, easy to read, and just simply charming.

This is not a fast-paced book, and it is not a work of literary genuis. It is simply a sweet, old-fashioned story, and--I am happy to say--it works.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Quilter's Apprentice, February 8, 2000

By 

Judi Kirby (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Quilter's Apprentice (Elm Creek Quilts Series #1) (Hardcover)

I quilt. I own a quilt shop. I also teach high school English. So my standards for what makes a good read are pretty high. Just because it's about quilting doesn't make it good. This story is really good. The characters are real, I have them as quilting friends, and as customers. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. A good plot with nicely written flashbacks. Written by someone who really know quilting, women and friendships.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning quilt and so much more!, March 21, 2003

By 

Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Quilter's Apprentice (Elm Creek Quilts Series #1) (Paperback)

The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini is the first book in the Elm Creek Quilt series. Although I have never quilted and doubt I ever will, I found the suggestion to read this book a good one. In the tradition of Whitney Otto's book, How to Make an American Quilt and Sandra Dallas' book, The Persian Pickle Club, Jennifer Chiaverini combines a love and knowledge and quilting with the story of two memorable characters. Best part about this book is that there are several more in the series which I now look forward to reading.

Sarah McClure moves to a small town in Pennsylvania when her husband takes a new job. With no friends and no job, she agonizes over leaving her former life in a college town. While interviewing for jobs, she is offered a job helping an older woman cleaning and sorting through her now decased sisters home. When Sarah remarks about the beautiful quilts in the home, Sylvia Compson, who grew up in this home, offers to teach Sarah how to quilt. What happens as Sarah learns to quilt, makes friends with other quilters in the area and learns the story and history of Elm Creek ensues is a wonderful book in which the reader is captivated by these wonderful characters and the art of quilting.

Jennifer Chiaverini has a real gift in explaining quilting to those who know very little as well as presenting a most intriguing story. And as I continue to read this series, I might very well consider trying to become a quilter's apprentice. Only wish I could find somebody like Sylvia Compson to teach me how to quilt.