Knit Fast, Die Young A Knitting Mystery

Chapter One "Well, this is a bust." Diane Camacho rested her chin on her hands and looked glumly at the rain coming down in torrents outside the wide barn door. "I thought it was supposed to be nice today." Ariadne Evans, sitting at the next table, didn't look up from her knitting needles. She was wearing a heavy parka, with a scarf made of fuzzy yarn tied around her neck. "April's rotten." Diane looked over at her. "Not 'the cruelest month'?" "Nope. Just rotten." Ariadne smiled briefly and then returned her attention to her knitting. This project wasn't the best choice, she admitted to herself. A shell of thin, silklike ribbon yarn would be perfect for the summer to come, but it wasn't suited to today, especially not with aluminum needles. She needed warmth, wool, something substantial and weighty. An afghan, she thought, tossed over her knees as she made it. Why couldn't she have chosen to work on an afghan? "No one's going to come out in this weather," Diane continued. "Anyway, I don't think we'd've had many customers. Not too many people are interested in wool festivals anymore." "Well, not around here. The one in Rhinebeck draws in a lot of folks," she said, referring to the big festival held each fall in New York State. "Well, we're not big." "No." Ari glanced up and looked around the barn again. The Freeport Wool and Yarn Festival was an annual fixture in this area of coastal Massachusetts. Held on the Bristol-Rochester County fairgrounds, it attracted exhibitors from as far away as New York. What it didn't attract was customers. There were too many good yarn shops now, selling all manner of products, from pricy imports to homespuns. Ari had to admit that she was part of that trend; she was proud of the stock at her shop, Ariadne's Web. It didn't help that the area was becoming increasingly developed and urbanized. Interest in the old country crafts wasn't as high anymore. Still, there were a good number of exhibitors, mostly women, and there were some interesting demonstrations going on, including knitting for beginners and the Sheep to Shawl competition. The festival was held in three of the fairgrounds' barns, unimaginatively named by letters. Barn A, the first one, was the most popular. Not only did it have a snack bar, it was the only one that was heated. Some lucky vendors had managed to rent space there. Barn D, at the far end of the row, had sheep pens, while Barn C, designed for smaller animals, wasn't used for this festival. The rain and mud meant that not many people had trooped to see sheep being displayed or sheared. Across a narrow lane from the barns was a large field. Originally sheep dog trials had been planned for the following day, but for now the field was simply a muddy parking lot. Barn B, the largest of the barns, was the focus of the festival because it housed the majority of the vendors, including Ari and Diane. While it had ample display space, it was also cavernous and dark. There were few electrical outlets, which meant there were no space heaters to add an illusion of warmth. The dimness, combined with the pounding of rain on the steel roof, made it very dismal indeed. Today's rain, remnants of a storm that had swept up from the south, hadn't been expected. "Good thing we live close enough to get warmer clothes," Ari commented. "Yeah. Not like the woman from Buffalo." "Buffalo? Who came that far?" Diane had taken up her spinning again and was concentrating on making fine yarn. "Some designer. She's way down there." Diane pointed to her right. "Didn't you read the pamphlet?" Ari leaned over her table, but the woman was tucked too far back in the corner for her to see. She did see a friend from the local area, Rosalia Sylvia, leaning over the woman's table. "I'll look at her things later. Maybe I'll buy myself a fleece from one of the bins while I'm at it." "Are youKruger, Mary is the author of 'Knit Fast, Die Young A Knitting Mystery', published 2007 under ISBN 9780743484749 and ISBN 0743484746.