When the creative residents of Elm Creek gather the week after Thanksgiving to work on quilts for Project Linus, they respond to Sylvia's provocative questions to alleviate respective personal challenges and learn helpful lessons about the strength of human connections.

Starting over in the small town of New Bern, Connecticut, after a bitter divorce, Evelyn Dixon opens a quilt shop and forms a special bond with three women, and together they find the strength and courage to deal with the unexpected.

When Amish widow Emma Yoder offers quilting lessons, she acquires a diverse collection of six non-Amish students who form bonds with her and each other as they work through their problems and learn to create beautiful quilts.

Master quilter Sylvia Compson investigates her ancestry and discovers unexpected connections to a runaway slave and quilter who traveled the Underground Railroad to Elm Creek Farm before she was captured and returned to Virginia.

All seems well after Cobbled Court Quilt Shop owner Evelyn Dixon's son, Garrett, proposes to his girlfriend, Liza, until Liza gets cold feet and finds herself torn between a rare career opportunity and her love for Garrett.

Follows the Cross Country Quilters, a group of five friends, on their quest to complete the "challenge quilt" that is symbolic of each woman's personal goals.

Thanks to an inheritance from an aunt, Sadie Kuhns is creating a unique quilt by blending a traditional Amish pattern with a Hawaiian pattern as a tribute to her time spent in the islands, and she is working on a self-published book. But her sisters complain she is ignoring family responsibilities. Her boyfriend Wyman Kauffman is considering breaking up with her because she's too focused on promoting her book than preparing for their marriage. Will...

Having joined Elm Creek's quilting circle, newest member and chef Anna remembers her past and present experiences in her community's kitchens and becomes the writer of the group's official cookbook, in a tale complemented by one hundred recipes.

Retired Amish newlyweds Emma and Lamar Miller start a new quilting class, in which they work with an unlikely group of students to achieve emotional healing and create beautiful traditional quilts.

When Sylvia Compson discovers evidence of her ancestors' involvement with the Underground Railroad, it raises the historical issue of the use of quilts as a method of signalling fugitive slaves.