Patchwork by Karen Osborn, is about life in a spinning mill town in South Carolina. The mill clatters on, the building shakes, as though it were alive. It is a story about women, their joys and struggles, as they work and dream. Rose is the practical one. She works in the spinning mill and marries Edward. She delivers a premature baby and in spite of the doctor's insight, baby Annie grows. Rose has her dreams but accepts her hardships as she cares for her family. Although they live in a small house, when her sister June is committed to an asylum, Rose raises her child Sylvia as her own. "When I get done work, I'm too tired to worry on it all. I got to run to keep up, them beaters banging so loud I can't hear my own mind telling me which way to move or how to thread the spindle so the cloth comes out right." p. 147 Lily is the gadabout. She likes to have fun. Although still in love with Charles, she marries the mill manager and plans the biggest wedding the small town has ever seen. Like others before her, finds that money doesn't always mean happiness. "The shuttles fly across the moving warps, the pattern always changing, each thread in its place." p.133 Sylvia is the first female in the town, chosen to receive a college scholarship. She leaves the life of the mill and attends a college in Florida and later becomes a travel writer. " I was thinking she was just running off to get far away as she could, but she's doing what she wants, weaving her own cloth. " p.296 This is a story about how people live in the same town, have similar experiences but each see their world through different eyes. This book has given me a different view of weaving. I experience joy as I weave and as I watch the cloth develop on the loom. However, weaving can also be hard work. As I sit at my loom, I think of Rose and Lily, and think how lucky I am.