Awesome Abounds

I am surrounded by the most amazing people in the world.

That is just a fact. I've known this for a long time but it has been proven in a huge way over the past couple days.  On Friday, I was shocked and thrilled to tears to find out Jill Draper Makes Stuff has made the finals for the Martha Stewart American Made Audience Choice Award.

You can vote every day until 9/24 and the winner is decided by simple numbers, whoever gets the most votes wins $10,000 and a feature in Martha Stewart Living. This is a huge honor and winning it could really help me take the company to the next level.

I've had so many friends, colleagues, customers and shop owners share the voting link (it's right here by the way) that I am simply overwhelmed by kindness.  The yarn community is truly one of the most supportive groups anyone could hope to be a part of!! Where else would other companies that in traditional "business" would be your "competitors" be rooting for you?! Nowhere. We yarnies are in it together.

I started dyeing yarn as a way to combine my love of color & painting with my new obsession (at the time) of hand knitting.  The serendipity of the middle mixtures between colors and the resulting unexpectedness in the hand knitted garment only made me fall more head over heels for hand dyeing.  It has changed from a pastime into my full time job and I couldn't be more happy.  In case you didn't know, I dye all my yarns from 5 primary colors (cool red, warm red, yellow, cool blue and warm blue) mixing each to get the exact color I want.

Running my own small business has meant lots of sacrifices.  It has meant missed BBQs and dinners out with friends.  It means skipping lots of little luxuries to invest more in growing my business. It means working the equivalent of a couple full time jobs without paid holidays, weekends off or "benefits". 
I love every day though. 
I am so proud of where JDMS has come from and what lies ahead.  I work tirelessly to source new wool and find mills to work with in the US.  This takes a lot of time and a pretty large investment that takes months before I'm able to recoup any of. There have been high points and super lows over the past 5 years.

All of this is WORTH IT though. 

Every time I get an email from a knitter or crocheter with a picture of their newly finished garment or someone asks if they can hug me at a fiber fest (you can, but at your own risk, I might be sweaty by the end of the day or weekend ;) I know I've picked the right path.

Thank you so much for walking this path with me.  I appreciate your support more than you could ever know.  Winning this award could make even more of my dreams come true.  It could mean being able to hire some help and set up a studio outside my house so I have even more room to work and won't have to share a wet studio with my laundry. 

Even if I don't win, knowing I have all of you standing beside me is kind of like winning anyway.