A Single Thread von Tracy Chevalier

It's 1932 and Violet, mourning for both her fiancé and her brother and seen as a 'surplus woman' unlikely to marry, escapes her suffocating mother and strikes out alone. Violet falls in with the broderers, a group of women who embroider Cathedral kneelers, and is soon entwined in their lives and their secrets. As the threat of a second War appears on the horizon Violet collects a few secrets of her own that could change everything. From the bestselling author of "Girl with a Pearl Earring".