THE WORLD'S FAIR QUILT, is the next chapter in the life of Sylvia after she reclaims her inheritance - the Elm Creek Manor. After a turbulent and precarious turnover from dilapidated to now a running, flourishing business, Elm Creek has just found its legs. A quilting retreat heaven widely known and sought after in the country, all thanks to Sylvia and her team.
In this next chapter, the latest in the series, we see Sylvia pondering handing over daily operations to her team and herself taking a break.
While she knows change is afoot, she goes back and forth between the present and her past to the quilts she personally made alone and along with her sister when they first started learning the art. The local museum, having a dedicated quilting history section has been displaying not only Sylvia's but her team's and other quilter's work too. The current curator, a young woman known to everyone at the Manor, being a local and the daughter of a quilter herself, tales Sylvia in the past, down memory lane as she requests one of her oldest quilts for display.
I've read a few of the previous books in the series and am familiar with the history of the Manor, the owner Sylvia, and her team too. It is a series that I am sure will be dear to quilters who are readers too. The author has created a world where there's a retreat for quilters from all over. A community place where they can spend time on their art and for friendships too if they so wish. Throughout the series, we also get to the owners of the Manor and the team that supports them in the running of the manor.
It's not just about quilting that we witness, though a major part of it revolves around it, we get to know the owners, the people who run the place and the quilters who visit the retreat year after year. It is a series that reflects on the daily struggles of a business owner, one who's emotionally attached to the business and the place too.
What I find appealing about this story are the characters and their backstories. On how they struggle and triumph on a daily basis to keep going and keep their faith in the business alive. The sense of community and friendships they build are one for life. It is this feeling of belonging that becomes the essence and heartbeat of the story and the series as a whole.
For a dose of friendship, community, support and a sense of belonging, pick up a copy of THE WORLD'S FAIR QUILT and find yourself enjoying and picking up a new hobby and book series to try.
A timely celebration of quilting, family, community, and history in this latest novel in the perennially popular Elm Creek Quilts series from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini.
As fall paints the Pennsylvania countryside in flaming colors, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson is contemplating the future of her beloved Elm Creek Quilts. The Elm Creek Quilt Camp remains the most popular quilter’s retreat in the country, but unexpected financial difficulties have beset them and the Bergstrom family’s stately nineteenth-century manor. Now in her eighth decade, Sylvia is determined to maintain her family’s legacy, but she needs new resources—financial and emotional.
Summer Sullivan—a founding Elm Creek Quilter—arrives to discuss an antique quilt that she wants to display at the Waterford Historical Society’s quilt exhibit. When Sylvia and her sister Claudia were teenagers, they had entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. The Bergstrom sisters’ quilt would be perfect for the Historical Society’s exhibit, Summer explains.
Sylvia is reluctant to lend out the quilt, which has been stored in the attic for decades, nearly forgotten. In keeping with the contest’s “Century of Progress” theme, the girls illustrated progress of values—scenes of the Emancipation Proclamation, woman’s suffrage, and labor unions. But although it won ribbons, the quilt also drove a wedge between the sisters.
As Sylvia reluctantly retraces her quilt’s story for Summer, she makes an unexpected discovery—one that restores some of her faith in this unique work of art, and helps shine some light on a way forward for the Elm Creek Quilts community.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy