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The USA Today bestselling Needlecraft mystery series returns to pick up another deadly stitch—includes a free needlepoint pattern!

As full-time owner of the Crewel World needlework shop and part-time sleuth, Betsy Devonshire has become skilled at weaving suspicious threads. But when one of her regulars unwittingly becomes involved in a deadly delivery of exotic antiquities, Betsy fears something is seriously warped..
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USA Today bestselling Needlecraft mystery series--with pattern included.

Part-time sleuth and full-time owner of the needlework shop Crewel World, Betsy Devonshire prepares for a chilling holiday season filled with mistletoe--and murder..
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Whether as pastime or obsession, needle crafts are enjoyed by millions, and this ultimate guide presents all the tools of the trade. Small, spiral-bound, and sturdy, it fits in a pocket or a needlework bag and stands up on its own for the freedom of busy hands. Within its compact pages, this handbook contains detailed information on everything from picking the proper supplies to fixing the worst mistakes. Techniques include nine separate methods of starting a thread, five ways to end one, six varieties of embroidery, and 16 kinds of stitches. Also included are instructions on embellishing and directions for blocking and finishing..
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FREE KNITTING PATTERN INCLUDED!

When adoptee Lucille Jones comes to town researching her roots, Betsy notices that she bears a remarkable resemblance to local Jan Henderson Betsy introduces the look-alikes, and they quickly hit it off. But then Jan's wealthy great-aunt is found dead in her bed, and Jan is the prime suspect. Lucille begs Betsy to help clear her new friend's name.

And while going through her aunt's effects, Jan finds an old embroidered pillow featuring a flag with 49 stars-an odd error for a woman so sharp at figures. Stranger still, the lining is stitched with a map of Lake Minnetonka. Betsy intends to follow the threads. Who knows-it could just possibly lead to buried treasure. Or, perhaps, to a secret that someone would kill to conceal..
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Among the enduring stereotypes of early American history has been the colonial Goodwife, perpetually spinning, sewing, darning, and quilting, answering all of her family s textile needs. But the Goodwife of popular historical imagination obscures as much as she reveals; the icon appears to explain early American women s labor history while at the same time allowing it to go unexplained. Tensions of class and gender recede, and the largest artisanal trade open to early American women is obscured in the guise of domesticity.

In this book, Marla R. Miller illuminates the significance of women s work in the clothing trades of the early Republic. Drawing on diaries, letters, reminiscences, ledgers, and material culture, she explores the contours of working women s lives in rural New England, offering a nuanced view of their varied ranks and roles skilled and unskilled, black and white, artisanal and laboring as producers and consumers, clients and craftswomen, employers and employees. By plumbing hierarchies of power and skill, Miller explains how needlework shaped and reflected the circumstances of real women s lives, at once drawing them together and setting them apart.

The heart of the book brings into focus the entwined experiences of six women who lived in and around Hadley, Massachusetts, a thriving agricultural village nestled in a bend in the Connecticut River about halfway between the Connecticut and Vermont borders. Miller s examination of their distinct yet overlapping worlds reveals the myriad ways that the circumstances of everyday lives positioned women in relationship to one another, enlarging and limiting opportunities and shaping the trajectories of days, years, and lifetimes in ways both large and small. The Needle s Eye reveals not only how these women thought about their work, but how they thought about their world..
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Ray Materson wanted to be a priest when he grew up. He was an A student and sixth-grade class president.

But in college Ray began drinking, which led to drug experimentation, which devolved to an addict's life of living fix to fix. Finally, petty acts of theft and the end of loans from friends led to carjacking with a toy gun and a sentence of twenty-five years behind bars.

One miserable day in prison, Ray remembered an image of his grandmother sitting on the porch with her embroidery. At about the same time, the University of Michigan was to play in the Rose Bowl. Improvising a needlework hoop, Ray made a maize-and-blue Michigan M so he could officially cheer his team to victory. Soon Ray was sewing small flags and emblems using threads pulled from socks for pieces commissioned by fellow inmates, who paid him with cigarettes. Over time his work became more intricate-miniature masterpieces that told stories from his past and illustrated his dreams for the future. In stitching his artwork, Ray found hope and salvation.

Enter Melanie, a woman who sees Ray's work in a local exhibition and writes him a fan letter. Ultimately she marries him while he's still in prison. With Melanie's encouragement and perseverance, Ray's artwork gains national attention and is a smash hit. To this day, his work is represented by the American Primitive Gallery in New York.

Illustrated with fifty pieces of Materson's artwork, SINS AND NEEDLES is the riveting story of Ray's journey-of how a broken man manages to put the pieces of his life together in a most unexpected way. .
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