The World's Fair Quilt
An Elm Creek Quilts Novel
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Return to Elm Creek Manor with a heartfelt celebration of quilting, family, community, and history from from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini.
As Sylvia Bergstrom Compson contends with financial setbacks at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, her friend and colleague Summer Sullivan, curator of the Waterford Historical Society’s quilt gallery, asks a special favor. When Sylvia and her elder sister were teenagers, they entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition. The unprecedented competition offered its 25,000 participants the opportunity for artistic expression, the thrill of competition, a tantalizing grand prize, and fame, with the finalists’ quilts prominently displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair. If Sylvia lent the Bergstrom sisters’ World’s Fair Quilt to Summer’s exhibit, it would illuminate a forgotten chapter of women’s history during the difficult years of the Great Depression.
Sylvia grants Summer’s request, but with misgivings. Neglected in the attic for decades, the fragile antique requires careful cleaning and repair—and not all of the memories it evokes are pleasant. Threads of fierce rivalry were woven into the fabric of the sisters’ relationship. Yet as their masterpiece took shape, the reluctant partners discovered in each other an artistic kindred spirit, and perhaps even a friend—until a troubling secret threatened to shatter their newfound sisterhood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chiaverini (Museum of Lost Quilts) continues the charming adventures of octogenarian quilter Sylvia Bergstrom and her friends at the Elm Creek Quilt Camp retreat in Waterford, Pa. It's 2004, and recurring character Summer, a curator at the Waterford Historical Society, wants to exhibit the quilt that Sylvia and her estranged sister Claudia made when they were teenagers for a quilting contest at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. In flashbacks, Sylvia recalls painful memories of jealousy and competition with her sister during the making of the quilt. Meanwhile, Sylvia's accountant, Sarah, reveals the retreat's financial shortfalls and suggests opening the adjacent orchard to apple pickers to increase revenue. Sylvia, however, balks at "amateurs running amok in my orchard." The novel's pastoral details, such as the delivery by wagon of homemade apple cider to workers building a farm stand, evoke a simpler time of camaraderie and cooperation between neighbors, and this sense of tight-knit community blends seamlessly with the historical details and enriching quilt lore. Series fans and newcomers alike will be glad to be in Sylvia's company.