PATCHES ON THE SAME QUILT is a series of related stories told by members of six generations of a Franklin County, Virginia, family. A young boy's wish for a horse changes not only the direction of his own life but also the lives of his children, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. As his grandmother, the quilt-maker Gillie Anne, says, "We might not be cut from the same cloth, but we're all patches on the same quilt." Each character's story adds a patch to the pattern of interconnected lives.