More than 30 stories, plays, poems, and songs featuring the making of quilts - written from 1845 to the present, mainly by American women - document women's literary history. Featuring the work of Bobbie Ann Mason, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Sharyn McCrumb, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and many others, Quilt Stories is a colourful literary album of stories, poems, and plays that celebrate quilting as a pattern in women's history. These stories - grouped under the themes of memory, courtship, struggle, mystery, and wisdom - reflect the importance of quilting in the lives of American women, not only as a practical craft and a creative outlet, but also as an integral part of the social community.