Rating: 
Summary: If you love quilting and love a good story this is the book
Review: I found it hard to put down once I started. I am donating my copy to my quilt guild for their library. The characters had real lives with problems facing many families today. I enjoy pieceing together the answers as the quilt blocks were pieced together. Jennifer needs to take us onto the next level with the plans, more details on the characters lives, past and present, and what new life is growing in Compson Manor. I hated to see the end come. It was like leaving new friends that I would like to visit more often. The details on the quilt process were good. If you had never quilted before the details were enough to leave you wanting to try this art form. Jennifer bring on more books.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read!
Review: This book was truly a joy to read. I had a hard time putting it down. Characters are well developed and believable. I finished the book wanting to know more about the characters mentioned in the book, the reasons for the break with the regular guild in the town, and how the plans that came to be turn out. Well worth the time to read and enjoyable again and again. I wanted to make a sampler like Sarah when I finished the book!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story about real people with real lives.
Review: I loved this book! I really felt that I had come to know Sarah and her friends as real people. I wish I had had a teacher like Mrs. Compson when I was learning to quilt. The story is a beautiful one that shows the importance of friendship and forgiveness. Unlike so many books these days, the characters are more complex than just "good" or "evil". I will definitely share this with my friends. If you love great stories or quilting or both, you'll really enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: A well written, inspiring novel with interesting characters.
Review: Jennifer Chiaverini's novel, A Quilter's Apprentice, is such a well written book that I felt compelled to write. The details of the art of quilting that she explains vividly has inspired me to try to learn to make a quilt of my own. Chiaverini's characters are so realistic and interesting that I would expect to find them at a quilting bee.
Rating: 
Summary: A great start
Review: I picked up this book *after* reading "The Runaway Quilt" and I enjoyed hearing how Sylvia and Sarah met and learned about each other. As is often the case, people are often mis-understood, especially Sylvia, who left Elm Creek Manor 50 years ago. She is only back to clean out the house after her sister passed away, and has enlisted Matt's (Sarah's husband) company to do the landscaping. Sarah comes to help sort through things until she finds a "real" job.Sarah and Sylvia gradually open up to each other and we learn the true story of why Sylvia left home, never to return. What follows will bring tears to your eyes. A wonderful read, and I can't wait to read the next one.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully warm, easy read
Review: Although the character development left a little to be desired, all in all this was a good story. It's very easy to read; not "dumbed down" or written poorly or simply, just smoothly. Everything flows. As a quilter, I enjoyed having all the quilting terms and techniques incorporated into the story. I was impressed at how even the 'quilting' parts of the book still flowed with the story. (A non-quilter friend of mine read the series and fell in love with them, and is now starting to quilt!) I think that even if you don't know people similar to the characters, they are still believable...although as I said before, they should have been developed a bit more. I think the next books in the series accomplish that a bit better. I really recommend this book and the series that follows it. Although the endings are tied up fairly neatly, it is done with grace and style and leaves you feeling happy, content and wanting more, rather than feeling as if you'd wasted your time. (I've read books that are TOO neatly tied up and it made me SICK!) My suggestion: read the whole series, or at least the first 3 books together rather than stopping after the first and judging the rest based on the first.
Rating: 
Summary: Cozy and Charming
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Quilters will love this
Review: Jennifer Chiaverini has a knack for pulling you into the story and making you lose your sense of the present. Her characters become very real and I found myself actually gasping out loud when a dramatic event occured. I wish the pattern was included with the book for the spotlight quilt. She is an excellent writer and offers an escape everytime you pick up the book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Disappointing
Review: While the descriptions of quilt making are fascinating, I found myself questioning the characterization. Personalities tend to adapt their outlooks to make a sweet ending without credibility.
Rating:
Summary: The Quilter's Apprentice
Review: 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.
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