Fiction Books about knitting, quilting and crafts seem to be very popular these days. What are some good recommendations besides the Friday Night Knitting Club books or the Quilters series by Jennifer Chiavari?

I like Benni Harper series by Earlene Fowler.  Its not new but can still be found.  I also liked Mary Kruger Died in the Wool  &  Knit fast. Die Young.  There are so many new ones popping up I want them all.

Jannymarie

Try Debbie Macomber's series... I'm not sure of the title of the first one; maybe the shop on Blossom Street..I have read all of them and they are really good.  There is usually at least one pattern included in each book.

Emilie Richards has a series that has to do with quilting and I have read most of them. They are good. I don't recall if she puts any patterns in the books, but I do know that she has some pattern books out about quilting from Leisure Arts.

I have not read them, but author Monica Ferris has some books about sewing that are mysteries.

 

 

I just swapped one in the "Someday Quilts" series.  I think it was called The Lover's Knot.

And I just saw one that got reviewed called "The Knitting Circle".

Monica Ferris's books are mysteries and the amateur detective is the owner of a cross stitch shop in Minnesota.  The first book in the series is called Crewel World so you might call it the Crewel World series.  They're pretty good, a light fast read.

I have really enjoyed Emilie Richard's Shenandoah Album series -- actually I think I prefer it to Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilters series. I am surprised that the Shenandoah Album series does not enjoy the mainstream popularity of the Elm Creek Quilter's series!

I read this when it first came out in the 90s:

How to Make an American Quilt - Whitney Otto

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood.  "While mourning the death of her daughter, Ann Hood (An Ornithologist's Guide to Life) learned to knit.
In her comeback novel, Mary Baxter, living in Hood's own Providence, R.I., loses her five-year-old daughter to meningitis. Mary and her husband, Dylan, struggle to preserve their marriage, but the memories are too painful, and the healing too difficult. Mary can't focus on her job as a writer for a local newspaper, and she bitterly resents her emotionally and geographically distant mother, who relocated to Mexico years earlier. Still, it's at her mother's urging that Mary joins a knitting circle and discovers that knitting soothes without distracting. The structure of the story quickly becomes obvious: each knitter has a tragedy that she'll reveal to Mary, and if there's pleasure to be had in reading a novel about grief, it's in guessing what each woman's misfortune is and in what order it will be exposed. The strength of the writing is in the painfully realistic portrayal of the stages of mourning, and though there's a lot of knitting, both actual and metaphorical, the terminology's simple enough for non-knitters to follow and doesn't distract from the quick pace of the narrative."

It really was a knitting cirlce that became a support group for the circle members.  I enjoyed it!
    
 

thanks for all the suggestions!

Janet Tronstad has The Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches in the Love Inspired(christian romance) line..think there are 4 out.I've only read the 1st and it was pretty good..the 2nd is hidden somewhere in mt tbr and it's holding me up from reading the next 2!

Betty Hechtman? think that's the spelling.has a crochet mystery series.I've read the first 2 and have the 3rd in mt tbr

Monica Ferris's series has Goddy who knits and a few others knit in it also..it's a needlecraft series It hink.a lot do cross-stitch as well.

Earlene Fowler's Benni Harper series is good but not much talk about knitting though the books have quilt titles.

There's a quilting one called Death on the Drunkard's Path that's pretty good and a really short read.

The Christmas Quilt is good - can't remember the author - but it's about an old woman who makes a quilt for her son who's moved away..kinda sad and not solely focused on the quilting process  I think it's this one:  http://www.paperbackswap.com/book/details/9780739428412-The+Christmas+Quilt

there's a really good mystery/suspense book and arghh the title escapes me but it revolves around a quilt.I'll see if I can find the title

http://www.paperbackswap.com/book/details/9780061092534-Stitches+in+Time  here it is! it was pretty good though no one's quilting in the book talk is about the quilt

here's another that was good and deals with more than just quilting..  http://www.paperbackswap.com/book/details/9780312147013-The+Persian+Pickle+Club  t his one involves a bit of mystery and a group of women sticking my each other

Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas is about some women in early Colorado who have a quilting circle.  It's not the prime plot point but it got me interested in learning to quilt myself. 

Christie Ridgeway wrote a series (Malibu and Ewe) - the three books I read were How to knit a Wild Bikini - Unravel Me and Dirty Sexy Knitting --They were all pretty good-

Another vote for How To Make An American Quilt by Whitney Otto. It was also made into a movie.

Sandra Dallas  Persian Pickle Club is about a group of women in KS that get together weekly for a quilting cirlce.  Sandra Dallas is my new fav right now!

I have to second the Debbie Macomber suggestion, if I remember correctly she even puts some of the patterns in her books. She might even have a non-fiction knitting book. She is really into it and weaves it into some of her other series like the Cedar Cove books

Maggie Sefton has a knitting related cozy series. The first one is Knit One, Kill Two and the 2nd is Needled to Death.

The Maggie Sefton Knitting Mysteries are my favorite :)

Tim Myers has written a mystery series based on soap making and another with a candle making theme.

I liked the Christie Ridgeway books too.  A pretty light fun read.