ANASTASIA IS BACK!

Lois Winston, the author who is always getting me into trouble, has done it again. Scrapbook of Murder, the sixth book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, is currently available for pre-order, and as usual, thanks to Lois, I’m up to my eyeballs in murder and mayhem.

Lois often gets her plot ideas from news stories she reads. Scrapbook of Murder is no exception. It was inspired by two recent headline-making events, a sex scandal at a prestigious New Hampshire prep school and a real-life ongoing mystery taking place in the town where the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries are set. She even blogged about it shortly after the story broke nationally. You can read about it here.

To whet your appetite, you can read the first chapter of Scrapbook of Murder here. 

Scrapbook of Murder will release on Oct. 2^nd and be available in both print and as an ebook. In celebration of my latest caper, I’ve created a one-of-a-kind fabric and button-craft photo album that Lois is giving away only through her newsletter and readers of this blog. If you’d like a chance to win, sign up for the newsletter, then send an email to her at lois@loiswinston.com. No need to send your mailing address. If you win, she'll email you for it. The winner will be chosen by random drawing on release day, Oct. 2^nd.

Scrapbook of Murder

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

Crafts and murder don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but normal deserted craft editor Anastasia Pollack’s world nearly a year ago. Now, tripping over dead bodies seems to be the “new normal” for this reluctant amateur sleuth.

When the daughter of a murdered neighbor asks Anastasia to create a family scrapbook from old photographs and memorabilia discovered in a battered suitcase, she agrees—not only out of friendship but also from a sense of guilt over the older woman’s death. However, as Anastasia begins sorting through the contents of the suitcase, she discovers a letter revealing a fifty-year-old secret, one that unearths a long-buried scandal and unleashes a killer. Suddenly Anastasia is back in sleuthing mode as she races to prevent a suitcase full of trouble from leading to more deaths.

Pre-order at Amazon and Kobo. 

On sale everywhere Oct. 2^nd.

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR ANN MYERS

Knitting fail

Ann Myers writes the Santa Fe Café Mysteries featuring café chef and reluctant amateur sleuth, Rita Lafitte. When not writing, Ann enjoys cooking, crafts, and reading other authors’ cozy mysteries. Learn more about Ann and her books at her website.

Failures and Frustrations

Failures and frustrations…oh, where to start? I’ll confess first to crafting flops. There have been a lot. The cardboard sculptures that went straight to recycling. Sewing, particularly pants. A glass bead workshop I fled because of my totally reasonable fear of giant shooting flames. Metalsmithing went slightly better, but only as far as soldering with a crème brûlée torch. Then there’s knitting.

Those of you who knit probably think it’s as easy as devouring pie. Not for me. Friends and family have tried to teach me. I’ve watched videos and envied people who can knit in waiting rooms or on planes. How do they do it? I’ll probably never catch on. Even my dear, sweet grandmother lost hope. “You’re good at other things,” she told me.  

Which leads to other things: career failures. To better understand, let’s label me: I’m an introvert with an active imagination regarding murder. So, living in Florida in the boom years, I decided to sell real estate. Why not, I thought. I love looking at houses! I didn’t think about how I’d find clients, or about meeting people (potential murderers) in empty buildings. I had two listings: a beetle-chewed shack and a ’60s ranch home with a pool owned by a man who claimed to run an international spy agency. He also claimed the pool required expert care. That was true. It turned green, he changed agents, and I sold the shack and quit real estate.

You’d think I’d learn. No, I turned to insurance sales. With my expect-the-worst tendencies, I’m a big fan of insurance. However, insurance required cold calling. I dreaded this probably exponentially more than the average person dreads cold calling. And when I got appointments, they were on the other side of the state, across the vast Ocala Forest (a forest notorious for serial killings). I did meet lovely people and listened to a lot of books on tape. Predictably—in retrospect—insurance was another failure, and I moved on to grant writing and editing.

So, what did I learn? I guess I can’t change my nature. I’ll never be good at mingling, cold calling, or verbal persuasion. But I’ll always love books and solitary work, and what better way to channel my criminal suspicions than mystery writing? With crafts, I’m afraid I haven’t changed my ways. A friend and I are currently taking blacksmithing classes. Yes, more scary flames and a craft that’s a lot harder than it looks on YouTube videos. But we’re going to keep trying because that’s the fun part—and because bending steel seems a whole lot easier than knitting!

Feliz Navidead

Holly, jolly, and downright deadly—the third Santa Fe Café mystery unwraps surprises both naughty and nice…

It’s the most picturesque time of the year in Santa Fe, and Chef Rita Lafitte of Tres Amigas Café hopes the twinkling lights and tasty holiday treats will charm her visiting mom. Rita is also planning fun activities, such as watching her teenage daughter, Celia, perform in an outdoor Christmas play. What she doesn’t plan for is murder.

Rita discovers a dead actor during the premier performance but vows to keep clear of the case. Sleuthing would upset her mom. Besides, there’s already a prime suspect, caught red-handed in his bloodied Santa suit. However, when the accused Santa’s wife begs for assistance—and points out that Celia and other performers could be in danger—Rita can’t say no. With the help of her elderly boss, Flori, and her coterie of rogue knitters, Rita strives to salvage her mother’s vacation, unmask a murderer, and stop this festive season from turning even more fatal.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST KNITTER AND AUTHOR MOLLY MACRAE

Award-winning author Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town. Today Molly live in Illinois, where she connects children with books at the public library and writes her Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery series. Learn more about Molly and her books at her website. She also blogs on the first Monday of each month at Amy Alessio’s vintage food and craft blog  and on the 23^rd of each month at Killer Characters.

Today Molly joins us to talk about knitting and her latest mystery.

I’ve learned how to knit – many times! And every time I learn again, I think how cool it is to manipulate a ball of string with a couple of sticks and end up with a scarf or a hat that almost fits someone (although I’m not sure who.)

I love going into yarn shops and being hit with all the colors and textures, all that potential wrapped in skeins and hanks and balls of fibers. My hands itch, not because of the wool, but for needles and patterns. And it’s not just knitting – I’ve dabbled in crochet, macramé, embroidery, dyeing, spinning, weaving, needle felting, and quilting. I haven’t tried lace-making, yet, but someday . . .

Okay, I’ll admit it; I’m a dilettante fiber enthusiast. I don’t keep up my skills. But I’m not a hopeless knitter. A few years ago, I actually knit a ruffled scarf. And for a couple of years, I’ve had the wool to make another one. I haven’t forgotten about the scarf, or that a friend in Maryland is waiting for it with a cold neck, but instead of knitting, I’ve been writing.

In my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, Kath Rutledge, a textile preservation specialist, moves to Blue Plum, Tennessee, after losing her museum job and inheriting the Weaver’s Cat, her grandmother’s fiber and fabric shop. Kath isn’t me, but we have a few things in common – the museum background, a grandmother who owned a yarn shop, and a love for small towns in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Like me, Kath let her life and profession interfere with knitting, but she remedies that with the move to Blue Plum. Lucky Kath! Lucky me, too, because through my writing, I can surround myself with characters who do everything with fibers I’d like to be doing myself.

I do have an advantage over Kath; I have sisters who know how to knit and do it regularly. Here’s one sister’s pattern for very easy spiral baby socks. After reading this pattern thirty-seven times, I know that even I can make a pair of these socks. But that won’t happen anytime soon, because Spinning in Her Grave, the third Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery comes out March 4^th, and I’m hard at work on Plagued by Quilt, book four, which comes out in December.

Cam’s Spiral Newborn Baby Socks (tube socks – no heels!)

Materials:

Self-striping fingering weight yarn (something soft and washable)

Four double-pointed # 2 needles

Tapestry needle

Loosely cast 30 stitches onto one of your needles. Divide the stitches between three needles. Being careful not to twist your stitches, join the ends, and begin to knit around for the cuff.

Cuff pattern: knit 1, purl 1 (k1, p1)

Continue for 2 inches

Spiral pattern:

Rows 1, 2, 3: k3, p3

Rows 4, 5, 6: k2, p3, k3

Rows 7, 8, 9: k1, p3, k3

Rows 10, 11, 12: p3, k3, p3

Rows 13, 14, 15: p2, k3, p3

Rows 16, 17, 18: p1, k3, p3

Continue the spiral pattern until your sock measures ½ inch less than the length you’d like your socks to be. The socks pictured are just about 5 inches long.

Shaping for toe:

Row 1: k4, k2 together

Row 2: k

Row 3: k3, k2 together

Row 4: k

Row 5: k2, k2 together

Row 6: k

Row 7: k1, k2 together

You should have 10 stitches left, and you’re ready to close the toe. Cut the yarn, leaving a 1 foot tail. Thread the tail onto your tapestry needle. Pull the needle and tail through each of your ten remaining stitches, removing the stitches from the knitting needles and gathering the toe of the sock.

Push the tapestry needle through the tip of the toe to the inside of the sock. Now turn the sock inside out, and use the tapestry needle to anchor the stitches firmly. Knot and snip the tail. Turn the sock right side out.

Now make the second sock. Or lots of them!

For larger size socks, cast on more stitches in multiples of 6 (i.e. 36, 42, 48, etc.)

Spinning in Her Grave

Kath Rutledge is settling in as the owner of the Weaver’s Cat, a fiber and fabric shop in Blue Plum, Tennessee. But nothing, not even the ghost haunting her shop, prepares her for the mystery that will leave the whole town spinning....

It’s time for Blue Plum’s annual historical festival, and everyone—including Kath and her fiber and needlework group, TGIF—is getting in on the action. Expert spinners are gathering, and a businessman has approached Kath about using the second-floor windows of her shop for part of a reenactment. But the reenactment ends in real-life bloodshed when local baker Reva Louise Snapp is shot—with a bullet from a modern-day gun.

Kath has her theories about who wanted to end Reva Louise’s life. But there’s also talk of a sniper stalking Blue Plum, and Kath’s shop is suspected to be the murderer’s hideout. Now Kath, her TGIF pals, and the gloomy ghost, Geneva, must unravel the mystery quickly, or someone else might be left hanging by a thread....

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