From the Library - Elm Creek Quilt Series

Cole Here-   I am an audio book reader!  I love that I can craft, paint and drive and still read!  I am also cheap... so most of the time my audio books come from my library.  I have been listening to the Elm Creek Quilt series for about two years.  I just finished The Union Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini.  It is the 17th book in the series.  I absolutely loved this book.  Here is Jennifer's website -www.elmcreek.net.  The Union Quilters takes place during the Civil war and is an interesting account of how northern women got through this time in American history.  I cried four times during this book and was surprised by my own response. 

My favorite character is Gerda!  Thank you Jennifer for years of entertainment and being an inspiration for great business marketing- books, fabric, patterns & tours.  If you have any idea's for other crafty reads please let me know.    



I started with The Christmas Quilt and wish I had started at the beginning of the series... I love to sew but have yet to make a quilt.  I love these books because they combine my love of all women's handiwork and the history that is stitched into each of her stories.  I would recommend you begin at the beginning of the series - Here is info pulled from Jennifer's site about how to read the series -

Should I read the Elm Creek Quilts novels in the order you wrote them? If I read the Elm Creek Quilts novels out of order, will I still be able to understand them?

If you want to read the books in the order I wrote them, read them in the order listed above. However, since I wasn't planning to write a series, I have written each book so that it stands alone. On my book tour, I often hear longtime fans tell new readers that the books should be read in the order I wrote them, but other readers have told me that they have read the books out of order and were able to follow everything just fine. Ultimately it's up to the individual reader. Please note, however, that later books inevitably give away events that occurred in previous books. If you would like to read the books in something approximating chronological order, please note the following:

• The Christmas Quilt takes place in the interim between The Quilter's Apprentice andRound Robin.
• The Sugar Camp Quilt is set in 1849-1850, so it takes place before the events chronicled in Gerda's memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
• The Quilter's Homecoming is set mainly in 1925, but it branches off from a storyline introduced in The Christmas Quilt.
• The New Year's Quilt immediately follows The Quilter's Legacy.
• The Lost Quilter begins in 1859 immediately following the events chronicled in Gerda's memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
• A Quilter's Holiday takes place while Bonnie is in Hawaii in The Aloha Quilt.
• The Union Quilters begins in 1861 and runs mostly concurrently with The Lost Quilter.
• The Wedding Quilt takes place after A Quilter's Holiday and The Aloha Quilt, with flash forwards to the year 2028.

The Union Quilters, The Lost Quilter, The Sugar Camp Quilt, and The Quilter's Homecoming work particularly well as stand-alone novels and can be enjoyed as your first Elm Creek Quilts novel or at any point in the series.