Quilt as Desired: The Novel

No, I didn't write a novel! But Arlene Sachitano did! She contacted me by email to let me know that her book title is the same as my blog title....I thought, oh no she's going to ask me to change my blog name or sue me! But she didn't! Instead, she asked me to be a stop on her virtual book tour! At first I was skeptical, things like that don't happen to me. I checked out her book by googling it first, I was afraid the link could be a virus, I am so paranoid! But I am happy to report it is legitimate and Arlene seems to be a fine person via the limited email correspondence we have had.

Arlene has been writing since she was a child, then throughout high school, and through her many years working in the electronics industry. She wrote her first mystery novel "Chip and Die" featuring an amateur sleuth who is a supervisor in the high tech industry. Now she is featuring quilting as the background for her next series of books. Why combine mystery writing and quilting?

Well, I love both activities, but my first quilt mystery was actually in response to a request from the owners of Storyquilts,Inc. At the time they had a store in the Portland area where my quilt group met. They sell Block of the Month programs that have stories included. When they found out that I wrote mysteries, they asked if I would write a mystery for them. I agreed and we created Seams Like Murder which was so successful it was followed by Seams Like Halloween and Nothing’s What It Seams. Based on the success of these Block of the Month programs, my publisher and I decided I should write a novel length quilt mystery.

Quilt As Desired is a mystery novel about a 38 year widow, Harriet Truman, who returns to Foggy Point, Washington to babysit her aunt's long arm quilting business. She returns to the studio one night to find it trashed:

The workroom was a riot of color, but instead of a complimentary arrangement of pattern and shape, the scene was harsh and discordant. Pastels fought with crayon colors and muddy browns and greys. Quilts were strewn everywhere, their bindings hanging like Spanish moss from the edges. The shelf cubicles were empty. The box of show quilts had been upended and the remains were all over the floor. Carry bags of all types littered the space. Harriet went to the show quilts first. She picked up Connie’s bright sherbet colored quilt and held it up. It had picked up a few thread clippings from the floor, but it seemed otherwise intact. Harriet folded it and laid it on the seat of the leather wing chair. Jenny’s purple quilt just needed its binding reapplied on one side. It too got folded and placed in the chair. DeAnn’s quilt didn’t fare as well. She had done a simple eight pointed star block called Pieceful Hours. It had a second set of smaller points that surrounded a center octagon. Both sets of points were densely quilted which allowed the octagon to puff up. Several of the octagons had been cut open. DeAnn could repair the tears and appliqué a motif in the octagons, but it was unlikely she could accomplish it in time for the show.

Two seams had been split open on Robin McLeod’s log cabin quilt, but again it was damage that could be repaired. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to the carnage. Some quilts were shredded beyond recognition, while others were barely touched, as if the attacker had tired of ripping quilts up part way through.

The mystery of the vandalism soon turns into a murder mystery involving quilting groups and quilt shows. This sounds like a fun read, I am definitely putting this on my summer cottage reading list. Last year was Harry Potter, this year a quilting murder mystery, titled Quilt As Desired...it is fate.