If You Like to Knit, You’ll Love These 6+ Knitting Novels

Love to read? Love to knit? Why not check out these knitting novels?

Knitters love knitting books, of course — what better way to improve and perfect your skills than with a knitting book?

But let’s talk about another exciting type of knitting book: the knitting novel. You might be surprised to hear just how many fictional books offer knitting in a compelling way.

In fact, Kate Jacobs’ The Friday Night Knitting Club is in development to become a Hollywood movie starring Julia Roberts (herself an avid knitter)!

Interested? The following is a collection of some delightful knitting novels that I think you’ll want to check out.

Note: the following links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I may receive a small commission. It costs you nothing extra. Thank you for supporting Knitting for Charity!

1. The Friday Night Knitting Club

As I just said, Kate Jacobs’ book is all set to become a movie, which in and of itself should attract hordes of readers. This is about as knitting-centric as fiction comes: the protagonist works in a yarn store and draws support from her staff and her weekly knitting circle. A poignant tale for all knitters!

2. The Knitting Circle

Anne Hood learned to knit while mourning the death of her daughter, an experience she channels in writing The Knitting Circle. In this story, a woman who loses her daughter discovers the healing and transforming power of knitting.

Not only does this story highlight knitting in fiction, it provides a realistic, powerful approach to the grief of a mother mourning her child. Not to mention the other knitters’ tragedies Hood’s protagonist unravels (no pun intended) as she goes along.

3. Died In The Wool

This is the first in Mary Kruger’s series of Knitting Mysteries, featuring a yarn shop owner forced to moonlight as a detective when she discovers a customer strangled in her shop — and with her best homespun yarn, no less! Died in the Wool is a fast-paced, fun, and pun-filled adventure. If you like mysteries and love knitting, you’ll — dare I say? — die to read it.

(Incidentally, “Died in the Wool” seems to be a very popular book title for murder mysteries. If you’re curious about the many others, check out this page. I can’t vouch for all these knitting novels’ quality, but it could be fun to compare and contrast!)

4. Knit One, Kill Two

All right, it’s the second murder mystery on my list, but something about involving knitting brings a whole new meaning to the term “cozy!” Some of my favorite instances of knitting novels are clever mysteries, such as this novel by Maggie Sefton. Follow the adventures of Kelly Flynn as she learns to knit and unravels some mysteries besides.

Sefton has actually written several knitting mysteries; if you’re eager to check out more, you can find the entire collection here.

5. My So-Called Love Life

Author Allie Pleiter is one of my favorites. In this delightful Christian romance, her heroine Lindy excels in silly voices — a talent she’s leveraged into a successful career as a voice actress. This does tend to have a chilling effect on her love life, however, in that whenever a date finds out what she does for a living, the romance dies as he begs her to “do the voice.”

Lindy is also an avid knitter. In one of my favorite romantic subplots ever, she subconsciously asks her sweater-in-progress to divine for her which of the two men she is interested in might be “the One.”

6. The Knitting Diaries

The Knitting Diaries is actually three books in one. All three — The Twenty-First Wish, Coming Unraveled, and Return to Summer Island — are romance novels that heavily involve knitting. In addition to entertaining stories, all three books also include knitting patterns!

(Incidentally, prolific knitting pattern writer Debbie Macomber wrote The Twenty-First Wish. If you love her patterns and this story, you may also want to check out her women’s literature novel Back on Blossom Street. )

If you just can’t get enough of knitting, check out these knitting novels to uncover a whole new side of your yarn!

Question: what’s your favorite knitting novel? Feel free to share in the comments below!