What could be cozier than an evening split between knitting and reading a cozy mystery? Even better, a cozy that featured knitting?
If you agree, you might enjoy the recommendations in this list.
Note: If you click a link, and make a purchase, I may receive a commission. Learn More.
Table Of Contents
- Best Knitting Cozy Mystery Series
- Knit One, Kill Two By Maggie Sefton
- Death By Cashmere By Sally Goldenbaum
- While My Pretty One Knits By Anne Canadeo
- Murder, She Knit By Peggy Ehrhart
- On Skein Of Death By Allie Pleiter
- Yarn To Go By Betty Hechtman
- Murder At The Summer Cheese Festival
- Yarned And Dangerous By Sadie Hartwell
- Died In The Wool By Mary Kruger
- More Yarn-Themed Cozies Worth A Look
- Knitting Cozy Mystery FAQ
Best Knitting Cozy Mystery Series
Note: I’ve checked every pick is in print, but they move in and out of stock, so it’s always worth confirming availability before you order.
You don’t need to knit to enjoy these. The craft adds texture and the occasional clue, but the story carries you. Many come for the mystery and leave tempted to learn.
Knit One, Kill Two By Maggie Sefton
This is the series most cozy readers started with. Kelly Flynn, a city accountant, comes back to Fort Connor, Colorado after her aunt dies in a break-in gone wrong, and stays once she realizes the death doesn’t add up.
The House of Lambspun yarn shop and its regulars are the draw. The shop-family warmth, the wool everywhere, the sense knitting is how this town takes care of its own.
With around 17 books, A Knitting Mystery is the longest on the list. This is a series to disappear into.
Death By Cashmere By Sally Goldenbaum
Izzy Chambers runs the Seaside Knitting Studio in Sea Harbor, a fictional town on the Massachusetts coast, and when a tenant turns up drowned, the Seaside Knitters take the investigation personally.
Four women of different ages knit together on Thursday nights and puzzle out the crime between them, so the books feel like eavesdropping on a sharp group of friends. The salt-air New England setting is delightful.
The Seaside Knitters Mystery series is long-running and ongoing.
While My Pretty One Knits By Anne Canadeo
Maggie Messina trades teaching for the Black Sheep Knitting Shop in Plum Harbor, Massachusetts, and her tight circle of knitting friends meets weekly until the death of a rival shop owner pulls them into asking who disliked her enough to act.
The Black Sheep Knitting mysteries are classic comfort reading with warm recurring characters.
Murder, She Knit By Peggy Ehrhart
Widowed craft-magazine editor Pamela Patterson founds the Knit and Nibble club in Arborville, New Jersey, and the first meeting goes sideways when a guest is found dead, a knitting needle driven through a handmade sweater.
The club setting is the appeal: knitting talk, neighbors who bring snacks, a suburban New Jersey street that feels lived-in. The craft is threaded through the crime rather than decorative.
It’s part of the ongoing Knit and Nibble mystery series.
On Skein Of Death By Allie Pleiter
Newly divorced Libby Beckett opens her dream yarn shop, Y.A.R.N., in a riverside Maryland town, and the grand-opening glow doesn’t last: a visiting celebrity designer is found strangled with a skein of red yarn.
Libby has staked everything on the shop, so a murder on the doorstep its a threat to everything she just built.
If you want a new mystery series rather than a 20-book backlist, this one launched in 2021.
Yarn To Go By Betty Hechtman
Casey Feldstein, a dessert chef who can’t tell a knit from a purl, inherits her late aunt’s yarn-retreat business on the California coast and has to run a craft retreat she’s unqualified for, while working out how her aunt died.
Knitting retreats and baking in the same book, the fiber arts and the food sharing equal billing. Casey learning the craft as she goes is nice if you’re new to it yourself.
Hechtman is prolific, so there’s a full series here.
Murder At The Summer Cheese Festival
Disclosure: this one’s mine. The Silver Springs Mysteries are craft-and-food cozies in small-town Vermont.
Laura works the case through observation and deductions, and the setting carries warmth. While it isn’t strictly a knitting series, there’s a yarn store, a crafters club, and theorizing over fiber arts.
If you want to give a new series to try, this is where Silver Springs begins.
Yarned And Dangerous By Sadie Hartwell
Josie Blair plans a trip to Dorset Falls, Connecticut to help sell her great-aunt’s old yarn shop, and instead finds a body and a town with no intention of letting her leave on schedule.
The homecoming setup is well used here, the reluctant returner who keeps getting pulled deeper, and the small New England town has just the right amount of secrets.
It’s a short series, only around 3 books.
Died In The Wool By Mary Kruger
Ariadne Evans runs a knitting shop on the Massachusetts coast, and the comfort of the place curdles when a longtime customer is strangled with a length of homespun yarn.
This is the deep cut on the list, an older, shorter series most roundups skip entirely. The yarn-as-weapon detail is grim in the way only a cozy can make almost charming, and the coastal setting is nicely drawn.
It’s a brief series, so treat it as a quick find.
More Yarn-Themed Cozies Worth A Look
If you tear through the main list, here are more worth knowing about:
- Knit One, Murder Two: Reagan Davis’s popular Knitorious series follows a small-town yarn-shop owner with a quirky family and circle of friends.
- Knitted And Knifed: Tracey Drew’s Knitty Kitties pairs cats and knitting in a coastal New Zealand village, with a humorous, warm-hearted tone.
- Crewel World By Monica Ferris: Betsy Devonshire arrives in Excelsior, Minnesota to visit her sister and ends up inheriting both her grief and her sister’s needlework shop, Crewel World, after the older woman is murdered.
Knitting Cozy Mystery FAQ
What is a knitting cozy mystery? A cozy mystery built around knitting, where an amateur sleuth, usually tied to a yarn shop or knitting group, solves a low-gore crime in a small community, and the craft plays a real part in the story.
Do you need to know how to knit to enjoy them? No. The craft adds texture and the odd clue, but the mysteries stand on their own. A fair number of readers pick up needles afterward, but that’s a side effect, not a requirement.
Are there knitting cozies with patterns? Some, yes. Check the back matter, since it varies by series and edition.
Pick the series whose setting you’d most like to spend a season in, read the first book, and let it tell you whether you’ve found your next ten reads.
About The Author
Jodie Morgan (Author & Founder)
jodie@knitlikegranny.com | Lives In: Regional Australia
Author: Jodie Morgan is a passionate knitter and blogger with 40+ years of experience currently living in regional Australia. Taught by her mother and wonderful grandmother “Mama”, she fell in love with crafting from a young age. When she’s not knitting, you’ll find her enjoying a cup of coffee with cream, or sharing helpful resources and tips with the online knitting community. Get to know Jodie and the team on our meet the team page.
Crunchbase | LinkedIn | MuckRack | Ravelry | Twitter