At Elm Creek Manor, the week after Thanksgiving is "Quiltsgiving," a time to commence a season of generosity. From near and far, quilters and aspiring quilters gather for a special season of quilt camp, to make quilts for Project Linus, dedicated to providing handmade quilts to children in need. Love and comfort are sewn into the warm, bright quilts they stitch, and their stories collectively consider the strength of human connection and its rich...

A modern-day crime sends folk art expert Benni Harper on a nostalgic journey back to 1978 to look at her college days and her first husband, Jack, when she discovers that an event from her own past could hold the key to solving a mystery from the present.

The circle of women who work at Elm Creek Quilts in rural Waterford, Pennsylvania, share their troubles and find solace in their friendship while sewing a round robin hanging for the entrance wall.

Using scraps cut from the family's old clothing, Tanya helps her grandmother and mother make a beautiful quilt that tells the story of her family's life.

"When a community center opens in town, many embrace it as a space where locals of all ages can gather and create. Others view it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. The director, Darleen Busby-Platt, is no less controversial. Intense and showy, Darleen has huge plans for her new role. But Lucy believes the woman isn't exactly as warm hearted--or qualified--as she seems. That hunch deepens when Darleen and a young employee vanish... and dismembered remains...

Bonnie's quilting shop goes out of business just as her divorce approaches. But Bonnie gets a chance to escape when her old friend Claire invites her to Hawaii to help launch a new quilter's retreat at a charming bed and breakfast.

Quilters have flocked to Elm Creek Manor to learn from Master Quilter Sylvia Compson and her expert colleagues. There's Sarah, Sylvia's onetime apprentice who's paired her quilting accomplishments with a mind for running the business of Elm Creek Quilts; Agnes, who has a gift for appliqué; Gwen, who stitches innovative art quilts; Diane, a whiz at the technicalities of quick-piecing; and Bonnie, with her encyclopedic knowledge of folk art patterns....

In 1859, a runaway slave and quilter named Joanna traveled the Underground Railroad to Elm Creek Farm -- only to be captured and forcibly returned to Virginia. More than a century later, Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson recovers a bundle of letters that Joanna wrote from South Carolina. Reading transports Sylvia into the thick of the Civil War and to Edisto Island in the years afterward, where a group of ex-slaves formed a quilting circle.

Meeting at their quilting circle every week, the women of the small town of Grasse share their personal stories, beginning a tradition that encompasses a half century of American history.