Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Main Characters in The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini


The April book selection for the Quilters' Book Club is The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini.  It is the first of her Elm Creek Quilts novels. 

The two main characters in The Quilter's Apprentice are Sylvia Bergstrom Compson (known as Mrs. Compson in the book) and Sarah McClure.  As Sarah works to help Mrs. Compson prepare to sell her family home, Elm Creek Manor, Mrs. Compson teaches Sarah to quilt by making a sampler quilt.  This quilt consists of twelve different blocks.  Make one of the blocks from Sarah's Sampler Quilt, if you'd like, to represent the book The Quilter's Apprentice.  You can see the author's version of the quilt here.   

The very first quilt block that Mrs. Compson learns to make as a child is a Nine Patch.  Sarah includes a Double Nine Patch in her Sampler Quilt.  The pattern can be found here if you want to make that block to represent Sylvia Compson.

Sarah's grandmother makes her a Sawtooth Star quilt when she was a little girl.  If you'd like to make a Sawtooth Star block to represent Sarah, the pattern can be found here.

A minor character in the story is Agnes Chevalier Bergstrom Emberly, Mrs. Compson's sister-in-law.  (Sarah knows her only as Mrs. Emberly.)  Sylvia Compson and her sister Claudia nickname Agnes "Bachelor Puzzle," later shortened to "Puzzle."  If you'd like to make a Bachelor Puzzle block to represent Agnes, the pattern can be found here.

Mrs. Compson first taught Sarah to piece blocks by hand and then had her switch to a sewing machine to piece the rest of the blocks.  Some of the Tangled Web members are definite hand piecers while others are machine piecers.  Do you make an entire quilt by hand, by machine, or do you use both methods?  Inquiring minds want to know!  Please answer in the comment section below. 

Remember that by posting a comment, you are also entering your name in my give-away of Marie Bostwick's latest book, Between Heaven and Texas.  The winner will be announced on May 1. 

You might also enjoy reading my previous blog post here.

16 comments:

  1. I do most of my piecing and quilting by machine. Which is funny as I do love hand sewing. But the idea of making a whole quilt by hand seems daunting to me. And then there is our friend Julie who does all of her quilts totally by hand....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have only used a machine on one quilt because it was a mystery quilt out of a magazine and that was the only way to do it. It took a long time because it was so much work to set up the machine for only an hour or two of sewing, and then put it away. I finally finished that top when all members of the family were away for the week and later quilted it by hand. It is way easier to make points meet when sewing by hand. I also like the portability of piecing by hand.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love hand piecing. I particularly like English Paper Piecing. I am currently working on my 4th to 8th quilts. I have 5 going currently. I will work on one for a week and then switch to another one and do them all in rotation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As yet I am still not certain which block will represent "A Quilter's Apprentice".
    I do most of my piecing by machine. Currently I have a dozen quilts in some semblece of construction. One quilt is a small hexie design, clusters of hexies are being appliqued onto 12 1/2" white blocks so far...I may add other applique elements as I go on.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always piece my blocks by machine, and either machine quilt or hand quilt depending on the use of the quilt. One day, I would like to make a lap quilt with hexagons over paper, so all hand pieced and quilted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am a machine piecer. My hand piecing leaves a lot to be desired. I quilt with both machine and by hand.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just stumbled upon this site. It is very interesting. I have actually read all of Jennifer's books. It was like I was addicted once I started and camped out at the bookstore waiting until the new one arrived.

    I'm so glad you are reading it. My favorite was The Runaway Quilt. Just to whet you appetites.

    I machine piece and machine piece. I work and don't have the patience or the time to hand quilt. I get my love for hand work in the binding and embroidery.

    Enjoy your book.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm a fan of hand piecing. I machine piece and machine quilt. I used to do a lot of hand quilting on an old frame and even quilted for people. My hands have arthritis now so I don't hand quilt anymore.
    I've read all of these books and loved everone of them. Now reading Marie Boswicks book 2.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have only done machine piecing and quilting. I do want to one day try hand-quilting. I'm just too impatient and want to see progress. Although, I have started doing some English Paper piecing with some scraps I have. We will see how car that goes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I enjoy both hand & machine piecing. I will often mix both techniques on a quilt according to difficulty & size of the pieces to be stitched.
    I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading this book, it's a reminder of how much I love this series, The Runaway Quilt is also my favorite of them.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love to piece by hand but usually go with my machine since most of the quilts I make are for charity.
    Barb in Tucson

    ReplyDelete
  12. I am definitely a machine piecing and machine quilter all the way, although I have hand-quilted two items a while back--a wall hanging and a small baby quilt. I even took a class on hand piecing and after 10 minutes I knew I'd never do it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My very first quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted. After that, I machine piece, and usually hand quilt. I'm not very good at machine quilting.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I do mine by machine, however, the applique is by hand. I am going to teach myself machine applique in the next couple of weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I AMA hand pieced mainly but RSI is stopping that now.I love the "Elm Creek "books

    ReplyDelete

I love hearing from readers. Your comments make my day!