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The Art of Quilting
My Sister’s Quilt is a collection of interwoven stories where generations of women, connected through quilts and memory, discover how love, loss, and legacy are sewn into every stitch of their lives. What first inspired you to connect quilting with storytelling and memory?
Quilts have been in my life since I was a child, from my grandmother to my sister, who is a quilter. I spent time in the Amish community, where women still gather together to finish quilts by hand.
Each story feels both distinct and interconnected. How did you approach structuring the collection to maintain that balance?
The book had to be connected story to story and quilt to quilt to make the book work. I have to admit it was not an easy thing to accomplish, and I spent a lot of time with rewrites to make the book and stories flow for the reader.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I want to show the readers how far back the art of quilting could be found, how quilts were used in the Underground Railroad. Quilting tells a story; it is art, and its beauty is unbelievable. If you own a quilt, you hold history.
The book spans different time periods. Was there one era that was particularly meaningful or challenging to write?
Each time period was meaningful, and it was so much fun to tell a story, including a piece of history often ignored or forgotten.
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My Sister’s Quilt: A Collection of Short Stories presents quilts as silent witnesses to history, identity, and resilience. Each story is stitched with meaning-threading together lives across generations and continents.
From a quilt that crosses oceans to return to a woman who had forgotten it existed, to coded patterns aiding the Underground Railroad, these stories span eras of struggle and strength. Some pieces honor those who never returned from war. Others raise awareness through the artistry of AIDS memorial quilts or share quiet lessons passed down by grandmothers. A young entrepreneur reimagines quilting with a gothic twist, while a devoted sister supports her famous author sibling from the background.
My Sister’s Quilt is a moving tribute to love, loss, and the unbreakable threads that bind us-where the past and present live in every stitch, and history still speaks. In every square, a story unfolds. In every quilt, a legacy lives on.
My Sister’s Quilt
My Sister’s Quilt is a tender and heartfelt collection of short stories woven together by the enduring art of quilting and the threads of family, love, and legacy. Across its pages, the book travels through time, from the age of sailing ships and noble estates to the shadowed years of the Underground Railroad, linking each story with a common motif of fabric and memory. Each story, though distinct in setting and character, feels stitched from the same cloth of compassion, strength, and the quiet resilience of women who endure, create, and remember.
The writing has an old-fashioned gentleness to it, like something you’d hear on a front porch swing in late afternoon. Shawgo writes simply but with feeling. Her characters are vivid without being forced, and her dialogue carries a kind of natural rhythm that makes even the smallest moments, like sewing a stitch or sharing a meal, feel important. Sometimes the pacing slowed a bit more than I’d like, but that slowness felt right for the kind of storytelling she’s doing. It invites you to linger, to feel the texture of the scenes instead of rushing through them.
What I loved most was how deeply emotional this book became without ever turning sentimental. The relationships between sisters, mothers, and daughters are tender, sometimes strained, but always human. There’s a sense that the quilts are more than fabric. They’re witnesses, binding generations together through hardship and joy. I felt both comforted and stirred, like the stories were asking me to think about what we pass on and how we remember those who came before us. The writing has a warmth that sneaks up on you.
I’d recommend My Sister’s Quilt to readers who love quiet, heartfelt storytelling, especially those drawn to historical fiction, women’s lives, and family sagas. It’s for anyone who has ever held something handmade and felt the history in it. This book would speak beautifully to quilters, to daughters, and to anyone who believes stories, like stitches, can hold us together when everything else falls apart.
Pages: 146 | ASIN: B0FSW2L1MC
LITERARY TITAN 