Just weeks before Christmas, severe wintry weather damages the church hall hosting the Christmas Boutique--an annual sale of handcrafted gifts and baked goods that supports the county food pantry. Determined to save the fundraiser, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson offers to hold the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral family estate and summertime home to Elm Creek Quilt Camp.

Bonnie Markham, her divorce pending and her quilt shop out of business, accepts an offer from her friend Claire to help run a quilting retreat at a bed and breakfast in Hawaii where she learns the quilting traditions of the islands, but her idyll is threatened by her estranged husband's demand for her share in the Elm Creek Quilts cooperative.

"Summer Sullivan, the youngest founding member of Elm Creek Quilts, has spent the last two years pursuing a master's degree in history at the University of Chicago. Her unexpected return home to the celebrated quilter's retreat is met with delight but also concern from her mother, Gwen; her best friend, Sarah; master quilter Sylvia; and her other colleagues--and rightly so. Stymied by writer's block, Summer hasn't finished her thesis, and she can't...

Judy and her husband, Steve, prepare to leave for new jobs and lives in Philadelphia; Summer begins grad school in Chicago while boyfriend Jeremy's graduate work keeps him near Elm Creek Manor; Sarah discovers she's expecting twins; Bonnie isn't sure she wants to reinvent the quilt shop destroyed by vandals; and newcomers Gretchen Hartley and Anna Del Maso join the staff of the quilting camp.

When Christmas Eve comes to Elm Creek Manor, the tenor of the holiday is far from certain. Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, the Master Quilter, has her own reasons for preferring a quiet, even subdued, Christmas. Her young friend Sarah McClure, however, takes the opposite view and decides to deck the halls brightly. As she explores the trunks packed with Bergstrom family decorations that haven't been touched in more than fifty years, Sarah discovers a curious...

Sylvia Compson, hoping to win over her new husband Andrew Cooper's daughter, Amy, who disapproves of her father's late-life marriage, takes up work on a long-unfinished quilt she calls New Year's Reflections, which brings back memories of youthful holiday celebrations and the reasons why she became estranged from her older sister, Claudia.

Meditating on the weddings she has attended in Elm Creek Manor throughout the years on the morning of her daughter's wedding day, Sarah McClure evaluates the symbolic features on a wedding quilt designed to display the signatures of beloved guests.

Resolving to locate her mother's heirloom quilts after so many years, Sylvia Compson embarks on a cross-country investigation of antique shops, quilt museums, and other, more unexpected places, where offers of assistance are not always what they seem. And as Sylvia recovers some of the missing quilts and accepts others as lost forever, she reflects on the woman her mother was and mourns the woman she never knew.

"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...