Rules for knitting by Sally Goldenbaum

People often ask me about knitting, assuming, I think, that I know a lot about it because my mysteries revolve around a group of women whose deep friendship was knit together over. . .well, over knitting.

But the truth is, I don’t know much about knitting. Accept that I can barely sit down to watch television or go on a long car trip or meeting without my stash beside me—unfinished mittens and baby hats and sweater sleeves just waiting for a cuff.

I’m a passionate knitter, rather than the expert kind. And that’s why I have my own rules for knitting, really simple ones that somehow will take care of any other rules you need. And there’re only two.

  1. Find a cozy yarn shop

One just like Izzy’s (in the Seaside Knitters Society mysteries) in which friendly wonderful people work, and will sit with you patiently while you rip out rows and knit them back again and again or explain nicely that casting on isn’t the same as fly fishing. A person who will help you line up a sleeve with a sweater, and one who can make you smile when your cat uses an almost-finished sock as a miniature soccer ball.

  1. Find a knitting group

Online? A church? Or a group that meets every Tuesday morning in a yarn shop over coffee and shared patterns and caring bodies gathered around a table.  Or start one yourself. There are knitting groups everywhere and they make the art and craft of knitting a wondrous, sometimes therapeutic, and always fun adventure.

I discovered one on Cape Ann recently, a group of women sitting in comfortable chairs near a window. I watched from a distance while they laughed and chatted and passed around yarn to feel and patterns to look at. The saleswoman said that they’d been meeting for years—women of different ages — mostly strangers in the beginning. But as the months and years flew (and finished sweaters and hats and prayer shawls and chemo hats flew off their needles), the bonds grew. Now if a member doesn’t show up for a week or two, someone calls and checks on her, and when a birthday is revealed, it’s celebrated over needles and yarn and chocolate cake. And when someone is sick, chicken soup magically appears at that knitter’s door.

Community of the best sort. And all around needles and yarn, knitting and purling. And good caring people.


A mysterious woman arrives in picturesque Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, and the Seaside Knitters welcome her into their cozy world of intricate patterns and colorful skeins. Unfortunately, nothing frays a warm introduction like cold-blooded murder . . .

With her shy manner and baggy jeans, Rose Chopra becomes an unlikely superhero the night she stumbles into Izzy Perry’s shop and inadvertently saves a shipment of yarn from water damage. When the Seaside Knitters help the enigmatic handywoman settle into town and find work at a popular real estate company, Rose proves she can fix just about anything—until a potential homebuyer is killed and she becomes entangled in murder . . .

The moment controversial entrepreneur Spencer Paxton is found dead in a pricey ocean-side house, accusations fly at the last person on the property—Rose. But the Seaside Knitters have their doubts. After all, Spencer’s political aspirations as well as his company’s plans to pave over Sea Harbor’s historic art district with luxury apartments earned him some very real enemies . . .

Now, Izzy, Birdie, Nell, and Cass must swap knitting for sleuthing as they struggle to move the needle on a twisted homicide case causing turmoil across town. As tensions build in the sleepy New England community and Rose’s secret past unravels, the ladies face an unsettling realization—true victims aren’t always the ones buried six feet under . . .

Includes a knitting pattern