Vote for an Indie Dyer in Martha Stewart’s Contest

You may have seen information on Facebook or elsewhere online about Martha Stewart’s American Made Awards. This is a quest by Martha and the editors of her magazines to find 10 rising stars of small business, many of whom naturally are in the handmade marketplace.

Part of the award is the Audience Choice, a popularity contest that will net the winner $10,000 for her or his business, a spot in Martha Stewart Living magazine and a place of honor at the awards ceremony. You can check out all the finalists and vote for anyone you like, but you should know there’s an indie dyer on the list, Jill Draper of Jill Draper Makes Stuff.

She dyes yarn in the Hudson Valley and some of her wool is sourced from local sheep. She also sells knitting patterns. Her work is beautiful and well worth the support of this contest! Yo can vote daily between now and September 24; an e-mail address is required.

[Photo by Jill Draper.]

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Get a Deal on a Pattern for a Gift with the Indie…

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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