As a quilter, retired folk art curator Beatrice Coleman likes to have all the seams stitched together-but her plans keep getting tangled up in unexpected ways. Beatrice has never crashed a party but now her fellow quilt guild member, Meadow Downey, is driving them to a Victorian mansion in the mountains beyond Dappled Hills, North Carolina. Muriel Starnes, an elderly eccentric, has organized a meeting of quilters to pick someone to administer a quilting scholarship. The fact that the Village Quilters weren’t invited isn’t enough to keep Meadow from speaking her piece. But once the quilters arrive at the mansion, it seems they may never leave. An ice storm sends an old tree crashing across the driveway, leaving them stranded for the night. And by the next morning, they are one fewer-for Muriel has been sent to meet her maker. With everyone in the house a suspect, it’s up to Beatrice and the Village Quilters to figure out who has a guilty conscience before someone else gets tied up in knots.