This movie came out years ago when I was younger and I believe getting married for the first time. And I'm quite glad I didn't watch this then. And I'll tell you why, this movie will scare anyone away from getting married. This is a movie about a young woman engaged to a carpenter who is building her her dream home for when they get married because they're engaged and she is apparently a student I'm not sure exactly what her major is because it's very odd she's writing her senior thesis Arts of I guess a tactile nature from different areas. Though she doesn't seem to be an art major. She is having doubts about getting married and instead of sitting down with her fiance and talking about things and trying to work them out, she decides to run off to the home of her grandmother and great-aunt using the excuse that they are part of a quilting Circle, and she can use that in her senior thesis. But from there all hell breaks loose. She ends up hearing the stories of every woman in the quilting Circle as they are making the patchwork pieces, and every single woman has a whole closet full of skeletons! One woman's husband cheated on her but she chose to stay loyal to him, one woman had an affair when she was a young girl and decided to keep the baby and then just take off and follow a Raven That's supposedly let her to her future husband but as she was traveling there was no sign of the baby so they really didn't explain that one very well I'm guessing she dumped the baby somewhere. 1 sister as her husband laid dying of cancer cornered the other sister's husband and had an affair. It was just cheating app on cheating upon on cheating! Even Winona Ryder's character when her fiance came to visit and they had a fight and he left she was worried and called him many times and he didn't answer and then all of a sudden a female answered. His excuse was she must have dialed the wrong number. But she was so neurotic about it because she had already cheated herself at least once that we know of and probably more than once because she kept seeing the guy he was some young guy whose family own a farm in the area! Her grandmother told her not to tell her fiance. She asked her grandmother's friend, who do you marry someone you love or someone you lust? And the friend answers truthfully, your soulmate. I think I wish I'd never seen this movie, there's a lot more to it than what I've said here but I've already put in enough spoilers and I don't like to do that with movies but this movie really angered me. When you're talking to a young woman who's getting ready to get married, you don't sit her down and talk to her about cheating. You talk to her about the right way to have a marriage that lasts for decades! And that's certainly not by having affairs! I wouldn't watch this movie again if you paid me.

When writer Winona Ryder goes to visit her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) who is living with her sister (Anne Bancroft),she becomes involved with the women who are part of an annual quilting bee. What she learns will not only help her in her own writing but in lessons she can teach the women who will come to her in her own future. This sweet and touching drama is the story of these group of women who help Ryder through a rough batch as she decides whether or not to return to her fiancé (Dermot Mulroney). Ryder learns each of these women's stories, usually involving the men in their life, and each of those tales surrounding their influence in their parts of the quilting will be an influence for her as she discovers her own destiny.

The Oscar Winning Burstyn and Bancroft are gems together as sisters, facing their own past as Bancroft married the love of Burstyn's life and watched the two of them fall back together. In spite of that, the bond between the sisters never bended, and influenced Bancroft, a powerful artist in her own right, to use her anger in her art in creating a special wall. The dignified Maya Angelou tells of her aunt's own quilt, which surrounded the crow that lead her to the love of her life. Esther Rolle has a powerful cameo in flashback as this aunt. Angelou then tells how she fell in love with the young white boy who left her pregnant and how this brought her into the lives of Ryder's family. The sweet Jean Simmons gives a poignant performance telling Ryder of how her artist husband couldn't help his own infidelities and how she came to accept him for who he was, but how destiny has changed her own plans. Then, Alfre Woodard, as a spunky Haitan woman, tells of how she never allowed herself to become trapped by a man, something she sadly regrets but realized was beyond her control.

Each of these women have something powerful to offer, but perhaps the most powerful of these characters is the former champion diver played by stage legend Lois Smith who is both feared and admired in the community and gets a great final scene to show how far she has come. A terrific ensemble in a lightly plotted drama shows that less can be more in creating terrific art.

I'll save you some time. Gents, feel free to skip this movie. Based off the Whitney Otto novel, How to Make an American Quilt shows the audience a confused woman and the journey she takes to find herself as she talks to the women in her knitting group. If you like those kinds of "girl power" movies like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or Fried Green Tomatoes, you'll definitely want to watch this one.

I don't happen to like those kinds of movies, so despite the large cast—Winona Ryder, Afre Woodard, Jean Simmons, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Maya Angelou, and Kate Nelligan—I didn't like this movie. Many women will find this movie touching and heartwarming, but it did nothing for me. The overriding theme is that every woman is a patchwork product of the other women in her life, so when we choose our path of love, it's not really because we're choosing it; it's because all the other women's experiences in love have taught us and shaped us. I've never been a huge fan of estrogen-fest films, but if you like them, rent this one with your girlfriends.