CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--CHRISTMAS QUILTS WITH AUTHOR BARBARA GRAHAM

Christmas Tree Quilt

Barbara Graham returns for a visit today. Barbara began making up stories in the third grade. Her motto is “every story needs a dead body and every bed needs a quilt”. A prize-winning quilter, she enjoys combining her fabric addiction with her predilection for telling tall tales. She continues to be intrigued by the problems and situations her imaginary friends manage to get themselves into and refuses to accept any blame for their actions. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website. 

In my home, Christmas preparations begin the day after Thanksgiving with the hanging of the Christmas quilts. It is a tradition as firmly set as blowing out candles on a birthday cake. That’s just what happens in my home. The quilts themselves have stories. (Pardon the poor photographs)

The first quilt is homely. An experiment made by an inexperienced quilter. No matter—it’s a Christmas quilt. Slap it up on the wall. Always in the same place.

Wreath Quilt

The wreath quilt has some sparkly jewels glued onto the holly shaped leaves. Not bad, not good. It must hang near the tree. That’s where it belongs. No negotiation.

Snowman Quilt

Goofy snowmen march tirelessly over the couch. It was once a class project involving striped fabrics. Everyone else picked beautiful, elegant stripes, nope, not for me—snowmen.

And the last, the largest and the one that matters most is The Christmas Tree quilt. It hangs on the wall just inside our front door. It is always the background for holiday photos, the boys growing into men. The dog of the era. A procession of them. Add in a daughter-in-law, and later a grandbaby. It’s not the quilt that matters but the memories, both good and bad, that having it hanging there releases. Like the aroma of pine, there is a whiff of sadness. I worked on the holly shapes that form the branches for a long time but many of them on a trip my mom and I took after my dad died. Pushing the needle through the fabric by hand, trying to make nice sharp points—some better than others, grief and laughter combined.

And the laughter continues. I quilted it by hand and was teased mercilessly. It took me years because I only worked on it for a little while each year—October to December. I took it to quilt retreat every fall and my friends mocked me for bringing it so many times. I amassed a huge collection of jingle bells in all sizes, and colors; some I bought and some were donated to me by friends thinking I might not have enough. I did. I had enough to cover the quilt and still supply everyone in the state with a bell.

Like writing a book or making a quilt, the fragments are rearranged, some discarded, new ones added. The characters are growing older and new ones are added, but the quilt is loved, not because it’s beautiful, but because it belongs to a family. This guardian of tradition will, someday, hang in a different house, but for now it still welcomes the holiday in mine and waits until the end of January to be taken down and carefully folded, obliquely rather than in a tidy rectangle, and the bells jingle as it is returned to its home in the closet. Until Thanksgiving.

Murder by Sunlight: The Charity Quilt, book 5 in the Quilted Mystery series. Crimes heat up tiny Park County, Tennessee. A corpse in a tree signals the beginning of an onslaught of murder, mischief and mayhem. Sheriff Tony Abernathy and his small staff are overworked. His wife, Theo, a quilt shop owner, is drawn into the hunt for clues—not just the ones in her mystery quilt (pattern included).

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THIS WEEK'S BOOK WINNER

Thanks to all who stopped by Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers this week and special thanks to our guest authors, Judythe Morgan, E.F. Watkins, Ashlyn Mathews, and Barbara Graham. Barbara offered a copy of Murder By Vegetable to one of our readers who left a comment. The winner is Mina Murray. Mina, Barbara will contact you to make arrangements for getting the book to you.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR BARBARA GRAHAM

Barbara Graham returns to Book Club Friday for another visit today. Barbara is a mystery writer and quilter who writes a "Quilted Mystery" series featuring Sheriff Tony Abernathy and his wife Theo, also a quilter. Read more about Barbara and her books at her website. 

Barbara is offering a copy of Murder By Vegetable to one of our readers who posts a comment. As always, please be sure to include your email address or check back on Sunday to see if you’ve won. Too many books are going unclaimed because we have no way of getting in touch with the winners. -- AP

Magpie Brain

I have “Magpie Brain”, which strictly speaking, makes me a birdbrain. I’ll admit to making up the designation, it’s not in medical textbooks but it describes how my mind works. Whether I’m designing a quilt, cooking dinner or working on a new mystery, I am distracted by the “shiny thing in the grass”. When I try to control it, stick to an outline or a recipe or a pattern, it doesn’t seem to work as well. I don’t know why. I know many creative people who are not birdbrains, writers whose characters follow the script and they get more written, faster than I do.

I still manage to kill a lot of imaginary people. All my research on the situation assures me it is not illegal (or immoral) to kill someone who doesn’t exist, never did, and never will.

I wrote at least seven books before I sold “Murder by Serpents” to a publisher. The not quite magnificent seven acquired an impressive number of rejections from publishers and agents. To be truthful, they weren’t very good—they were practice pieces. While “Serpents” was traveling in and out of offices and meeting my editor, I worked on a totally different book. Again.

During this period, I took a trip back to Tennessee where “Serpents” is set. I visited the wonderful Museum of Appalachia near Norris and just by chance spied a fabulous murder weapon. A flax hackle, a device vaguely resembling a scrub brush but with rows of closely set metal spikes. “Ooh, I should kill someone with that!” I exclaimed to myself. I must have spoken out loud because a man standing near me jumped away, a fearful expression on his face. I did use it, on paper, and the series officially began. While working on that book, I had an idea that didn’t fit in, so I moved it down the line, and so on.

I love writing, I love my imaginary friends. I spend hours with them and if they annoy me, I can dispose of them. Legally. However, the work part is less fun. Each book must stand alone, but there are things a new reader must know, and bringing them up to speed without annoying the readers who already know the situation is a tightrope walk. Remember to watch out for alligators!

My personal biggest problem is keeping track of these people. One might have shown up in Book One and not again until Book Three. What have they been doing in the meantime? Good works? Crimes? Marriage? How much does it matter?

I like to think I’d be more organized if I had planned all along to write a series, but who can say for sure. I know writers who have notebooks, yes, more than one, detailing everything about each character. Height, weight, scars, grade school teachers, relationships and family history are charted out with accompanying pictures and color swatches. These people (A) always intended to write a series and/or (B) have the gift of organization. How I envy their skills. Seriously. My editor once sent a message asking me if I had a new character halfway through one of the later books—or—had I changed the character’s name? Argh, name change. Fix it. Please, fix it.

The downside to a series is if you kill someone in Book One—they had better not be seen drinking in the bar in Book Two, unless you are moving into paranormal writings. Ooh, now there’s an idea. I could add a ghost to the next book, and try killing him again.

Murder By Vegetable
The fourth in the "Quilted Mystery" series featuring Tennessee Sheriff Tony Abernathy and his wife Theo, a dedicated quilter.

Springtime in the the Smoky Mountains is being celebrated by a festival in honor of ramps, a pungent member of the onion/garlic family. The festivities are disrupted when a potato launched by a cannon strikes, and apparently kills, unpopular game warden, Harrison Ragsdale.

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THIS WEEK'S BOOK WINNER

Thanks to all who stopped by this week at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. We hope you'll come back often and also tell your friends about us. We have lots of exciting posts and guests planned for the months ahead. I’d also like to thank Barbara Graham for being our Book Club Friday guest and offering a copy of MURDER BY ARTIFACT to one of our readers who posted a comment this week. The winner this week is Barb Kowalik. Barb, please email your mailing address to me at anastasiapollack@gmail.com. I’ll forward the information to Barbara, and she’ll mail your book to you. 

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR BARBARA GRAHAM

Our Book Club Friday guest today is Barbara Graham, author of the Quilted Mystery series. Barbara describes herself as a mystery writer, quilter, and village idiot and believes “every book needs a dead body and every bed needs a quilt.” You can read more about her at her website. Barbara has offered a copy of MURDER BY ARTIFACT to one lucky reader who posts a comment to the blog this week. -- AP

I write crime fiction. In other words, I make up people and then kill them off. I also make quilts, a process of turning large pieces of fabric into small ones and back into large, but different pieces. A psychologist might have a professional opinion about my behaviors. I think I’m having fun.

I have met few writers who are not compelled, almost against their will, to drag words from their storage area and arrange and rearrange them into a pattern that suits them. For me the process of beginning a new book and a new quilt are similar. I open the cabinet where my “stash” of fabrics or words is kept or walk into a fabric shop and see what material whispers “choose me”. One will shove the others aside, fling its threads into my path and say “Darling we can make a beautiful quilt together” or the ever tantalizing whispered words, “Have you lost weight?”

Then I audition companion fabrics, secondary characters if you will, and gauge the way the fabrics work together. Too bland. Too crazy. Ooh, you’re even prettier than your cousin. What pattern would show you to best advantage? Triangles? Squares? Appliqued leaves?

When writing a mystery I spend lots of time creating the victim. This is the person the entire story hangs on. Why kill this person? On this day? In this manner?

When someone asks me if I am a mystery author or a quilter, I try to stifle a sassy “Yes”. I’m both. I love words and I love fabric, seriously adore them both. When I was creating the imaginary Tennessee county where the “Quilted Mystery” series takes place, I received a piece of advice—find a secondary market for my books. So, while writing Murder by Serpents: The Mystery Quilt, I charged in and gave the sheriff’s wife a passion for quilting and even her own shop. Her name is Theo Abernathy. I am not her but we share a love of color, fabric and our friends and family. She and I work together to create patterns for mystery quilts. The clues are included in the books, not as a part of the murder solution but as an extra for quilters. It’s the toy in my cereal box.

While Theo works at her quilt shop and is mom to two little boys, her husband Tony has his own work issues. He’s the sheriff of tiny Park County and therefore must juggle his duties to the citizens while solving crime. He has his own issues including a magnificently proportioned groupie named Blossom Flowers, his mom and the rest of the residents.

So, or sew, what is a mystery quilt? It’s a pattern followed blindly. No picture. The “clues” provide specific information about amounts of fabrics needed and general descriptions like dark, medium and light. Cutting instructions and sewing instructions follow through a series of clues. The clues do assume a familiarity with piecing quilts and sewing accurate ¼” seams. Murder by Artifact: The Murder Quilt has a different mystery quilt. Writing the books and designing each mystery quilt keeps me busy but I find each passion fuels the other.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Barbara! Readers, if you’d like a chance at winning a copy of MURDER BY ARTIFACT, leave a comment. Check back Sunday to see if you’re the lucky winner. -- AP