Crewel and Unusual

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With a new co-op of shops opening in the Blue Plum Vault, an old bank building, everyone in town is excited. Yarn store owner Kath Rutledge is excited for the additional traffic in town. In Crewel and Unusual by Molly MacRae, it's just days before the opening and an argument brews between two shop owners - Minerva (Nervie) Bales and Belinda Moyer.

Nervie accuses Belinda of selling fake vintage embroidery and Belinda accuses Nervie of selling patterns she has copied from other crafts people. They are about to come to blows when Kath arrives at the Vault. She sends each back to their corners and browses through Belinda's shop, after all Kath had been a museum textile expert before she arrived in Tennessee. Belinda wants to show Kath a special vintage embroidered table cloth and Kath gasps in shock when she sees it. She knows it is top quality and wonders how Belinda laid her hands on it.

One day before the Grand Opening, Belinda finds her precious table cloth shredded into bits and she hysterically blames Nervie. Kath feels the pain in her heart at the loss of such a lovely piece of work, but when she touches the shredded cloth, she doesn't feel any sensation. Usually Kath is very perceptive when textiles. When Belinda decides not to call the police, Kath is suspicious, but the Grand Opening is the next day and she decides to wait and see what happens. What happens is Belinda stabbed to death in a storage closet.

Despite strong warnings from Coleridge (Clod) Dunbar to stay out of the investigation, Kath and her posse of knitters delve into the second death in town. With the help of Geneva, the yarn shop's resident ghost, Kath and friends are able to solve the murder.

Blue Plum, Tennessee, and the Weaver's Cat shop sound like a wonderful places to visit, ghosts, murder and all. Another

The Homeplace Ghost

Geneva is back and is as haunting as ever in Molly MacRae's Plagued by Quilt. Because only Kath Rutledge can see her, trying to help Geneva find out who she was is very difficult. When two skeletons are found at the Holston Homeplace Living History Farm garbage dump, Kath thinks they might be the people Geneva believes she saw murdered decades ago.

Geneva has been haunting Kath's yarn shop since Kath arrived to take over the place in Blue Plum, Tennessee. Although Kath's grandmother Ivy is dead, Kath has found her secret dairies which contain her herbal remedies. Many people in Blue Plum thought Ivy was crazy, but there was more to her than meets the eye. 

When one of the historians is found brutally murdered, Kath and friends try to discover who the murderer is and how it is connected to the skeletons.

As for the townspeople, the Spivey twins are their usual negative force, but they surprise Kath with their patience teaching quilting to high school students at the Homeplace. Dangling a tantalizing quilt in front of Kath, they secure their place in the classroom. Kath is determined to spend time with the quilt, but the murder and her ghost are consuming her time.

I have enjoyed this series and Geneva is a very hip ghost. She has spend many years watching television so she says things that someone who had lived in the late 1890s would never day. The books are fun and entertaining.

The first book in the series is Last Wool and Testament.