the adaptation was turning the role of Finn, who is a periphery character in the novel, into the main character. Winona Ryder was the producers' first choice for the role. To avoid the possibility of audience confusion at the various storylines that jump back and forth in time, the filmmakers intended for "the [characters'] flashbacks [to] be very distinct little movies. They each have a slightly different tone. One story is a comic melodrama, one is tragic, one is a slice of life, one is kind of a fable." Patty McCormick, president of the Southern California Council of Quilt Guilds, assisted in the assembly of the film's quilts and worked individually with actresses to master the use of thimbles. Anne Bancroft and Maya Angelou were the only actresses with quilting experience. How to Make an American Quilt was one of the last films to be produced by Amblin before the company was absorbed into DreamWorks. Reception How to Make an American Quilt received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's consensus states: "How to Make an American Quilt is a bit of a patchwork from a storytelling standpoint, but a strong ensemble cast led by Winona Ryder helps hold it all together." In a review for The New York Times, Caryn James gave praise to both Moorhouse's "cut-to-the-quick" direction and Anderson's script for crafting an adaptation of a "decidedly uncinematic novel." She added that the film manages to give off the impression that "we are not watching movie women but real women, with shaky judgment and lifetimes of reasons to resent and forgive one another as well as all the men in their lives." Roger Ebert commended the stories involving Woodard and Capshaw's characters for being the most heartfelt but found the rest of them devoid of any emotional resonance compared to the tales told in the film adaptation of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, stating that they have lives "largely recycled from sweet movies and tasteful romantic novels." Eve Zibart of The Washington Post stated that despite Bancroft's performance being "right on the ceiling" in terms of over the top and saying that Ryder "seems for once to be acting, and not entirely comfortably", she praised the rest of the actresses for being "theatrical indulgence by a cast of stahs." The