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.]

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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