Sundarastitches.com

Drops Circular Jacket

Knit and Photographed by: Nathalie

Pattern: Drops Circular Jacket (Drops 102-6)

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Aran Silky Merino Through Many Mists

Needles: US 7 / 4.5 mm

Finished Size: Largest pattern size (XXL-XXXL)

Pattern Modifications: My gauge was 20 stitches to 4" so I went up a size in the pattern. I normally wear a size Medium (or 36" chest). I worked all of my short rows using the wrap and turn method to avoid any holes. The pattern calls for turning and pulling tight which didn't eliminate the holes entirely. I was running very short on yarn due to the size increase so I did not flair the sleeves as described in the pattern. I also knit the sleeves in the round and increased 2 stitches every 10 rows or so based on fit, trying on as I went.

Notes: The Drops circular jacket has a really interesting construction. The body is a big circle, which is knit one slice at a time using short rows. The ASM was a perfect yarn choice. The drape and snuggle factor are outstanding!

By Sundara on February 1, 2010 9:18 PM | Comments (2)

Scroll Lace

Knit and Photographed by: Glenna

Pattern: Scroll Lace

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Sport Silk Most Beautiful Eyes

Needles: US9/5.5mm

Finished Size: 83in by 10in (blocked).

Pattern Modifications: No pattern modifications.

Notes: This project used approximately 250 yards. I had 2 skeins and only had to break into the second skein for 4 rows and bind off. The pattern could easily be modified or smaller needles used, in order to accommodate just one skein of the sport silk.

By Sundara on February 1, 2010 9:05 PM | Comments (0)

Elm Row

Knit and Photographed by: NutmegOwl

Pattern: Elm Row

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Silk Lace Landed Glory

Needles: US 2/2.75mm

Finished Size: 13" x 59" pre-blocking / 19"x 75" after blocking with wires.

Pattern Modifications: Made stole-sized by casting on 138 stitches.

Notes: Silk Lace can easily be worked "caked" by recycling a multi-CD holder. Slide the cake onto the upside-down spindle, then pull your yarn from the outside. It will not tangle, and stays neat and tidy. This was the perfect colorway for the project. It has not been steamed, and it positively glows.

By Sundara on February 1, 2010 8:37 PM | Comments (1)

Gallery of Projects!

We've had an ongoing Gallery of Projects on the Sundara Yarn website where customers could submit photos of projects they knit with Sundara Yarn and we were always sad when we had to take down some of the great projects* at the end of the month. We decided to move the Gallery of Projects to this blog, so they'll be up on a more permanent basis.

We'll be putting up a few projects each week, and if you'd like to send us some photos of a project you've made out of Sundara Yarn, we'd love to see it.

Send your photos, and you can submit a few of the same project, to gallery AT sundarayarn DOT com. Please only one project per email, but feel free to email us several times with several projects.

If we decide to post your photo, we'll contact you for more information and when your project is posted, we'll send you a $50 gift certificate for Sundara Yarn.

A note on photos: Photography is the most important thing! If the project is gorgeous, but we can't tell from the photo, we can't include it. Projects must be well-photographed, and by that we mean not blurry, correctly exposed, and staged with some aesthetic sensibility.

*over the next few months, we'll be contacting some of you who had projects featured in the Gallery of Projects to see if we can include those projects here as well.

By Sundara on January 23, 2010 11:38 AM | Comments (2)

Project: Apres Surf Hoodie

Knit and Photographed by: Laura

Pattern: Apres Surf Hoodie

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Fingering Silky Merino Alpine Algae

Needles: US 3/3.25mm

Finished Size: 39”

Pattern Modifications: None

By Sundara on January 22, 2010 7:56 PM | Comments (0)

Project: Shifting Sands

Knit and Photographed By: Liesl
Pattern Name: Shifting Sands scarf
Yarn: Sundara Yarn Sport Merino in Cobalt over Mediterranean
Needles: US 5/3.75mm
Finished Size: (after light blocking) 6 1/2" wide by 61" long, plus 2 1/2" fringe on each end
Pattern Modifications: none - just knit until the end of the second skein, and use a small amount (about 30 yards) of a third skein for the fringe only.
Notes: The scarf has a lot of cables, but the pattern is quite easy to memorize and if you learn to cable without a needle (which is easy for cables used in the pattern), it goes fairly quickly.

By Sundara on January 22, 2010 6:33 PM | Comments (0)

Project: Grace Lace Beret

Knit and Photographed By: Terry

Pattern: Grace Lace Beret

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Aran Silky Merino Pink Pennies, one skein

Needles: US 4/3.5mm and US 8/5mm

Finished Size: one size hat

Pattern Modifications:

1) Used German twisted cast-on (similar to long tail cast-on but stretchier) instead of tubular cast-on.

2) Knitted 1x1 twisted rib instead of standard 1x1 ribbing.

3) Added one more repeat of lace chart for a total of 4 repeats (instead of 3)

Notes: A great quick knit!

By Sundara on January 22, 2010 6:05 PM | Comments (3)

Submissions!

We've got big plans for 2010 here at Sundara Yarn and are excited to start telling you about some of them. The biggest and most exciting plan is that we are going to be expanding into other things besides just our own hand-dyed yarn. Things like knitting patterns, fabric and other hand-made goods. But we realize that we can't do all of this ourselves and that there are many, many talented people out there. So if you are one of those people, or know somebody who is, we invite you to read through these submission guidelines and let us know if you've got something we might be interested in!

For all submissions and questions, you can send us an email at submissions AT sundarayarn DOT com. Anything submitted will remain confidential.

Knitting Patterns

We are looking for well-designed knitting and crochet projects out of any of the Sundara Yarn yarn bases. We provide the yarn, you design the project, and then we offer it to our customers on our website. If you've got an idea, we'll need a description of the project along with sketches/swatches and what yarn base you'd like to use. If you have a blog or a design website, we'd like to see it or you can just tell us a bit about you and your qualifications. We are especially looking for smaller projects out of 1-2 skeins of yarn, baby items and projects that involve multiple colors of yarn.

Fabric

If you are an independent fabric designer, or just someone who wants to design fabric, and have or are thinking about creating your own line of fabric, we might be interested in carrying it. We are mainly looking at quilting cotton, but would definitely entertain other ideas. Send us an email!

Hand-made Goods

We are looking at all sorts of pretty things that have been well-made by hand. Our only criteria is that the goods are made in small-ish quantities, are of extremely high-quality, and made pretty much by hand. Artisan-quality things, such as paper goods, household decor, ceramics or pottery, jewelry, hand sewn or knit items, things made of wood, smaller pieces of art or photography, toys, fun things for pets, or anything else you can dream up. Send us photos and item details, along with a bit about you and your qualifications, a link to your site or blog is perfect, as well as where else you are selling your wares.

By Sundara on January 5, 2010 3:37 PM | Comments (6)

Actually Available

Some of you have noticed our giant ad in the winter Twist Collective:

I should note that I took out the full page ad because the format of this size is easier for me to work with than the half page ads. Also, I just love seeing our yarn all big and pretty like that.

When I first decided to start dyeing yarn and selling it on the internet, my dream was to have a fully stocked yarn store in a range of yarn bases and lots and lots of colors that would appeal to many different color preferences. I had no idea that this would be so difficult to achieve, as the popularity and demand for my yarn really took me by surprise. It was a delightful, often frustrating, surprise and it took me 3 and 1/2 years to work through what we needed to do to satisfy our customers and achieve my original dream.

We've been making a lot of changes behind the scenes to make Sundara Yarn more efficient so we can produce more yarn without comprising quality or color. And that was just on the yarn production side of things. We've worked on our process for photography, for posting yarn, and for shipping so you get the yarn more quickly. We are still working out some kinks and I see more room for improvement, but at least we can keep yarn "Actually Available" instead of seemingly never available!

The other big change we've made is to start photographing the entire batch of Limited Edition yarn. This gives you a better idea of the variety of the skeins so that if you want to purchase the colorway, you can make a better decision about how the color variability of the skeins will work for your project.

I've got a few more ideas up my sleeve that we'll be working on in the next 6 months, but if you have any suggestions on how we can make Sundara Yarn better now that we have yarn actually available, I'd love to hear them.

By Sundara on November 24, 2009 11:04 AM | Comments (6)

Things I Learned in Napa Valley

Mom and I toured several wineries and tasted lots of wine, but the first tour we took was at the Robert Mondavi Winery and was led by a lovely man named Doug, who is a chemist. At the end of the tour, we tasted three of the Mondavi wines. They were nice, but not our favorite. But Doug taught us his method of wine tasting that was interesting and has, thus far, proven to be an easy way to make it look like you know something about a wine while actually figuring out if you like the wine you are tasting. And now I'm going to share it with all of you.

First, you need a small pour of wine. Two ounces works great. No need for anyone to get tipsy here.

The first step is to stick your nose in the glass and get a good smell for it. Then set the glass back down and swirl it around get it all aerated. Stick your nose in it again and get a bigger whiff. Most likely, the wine will smell much more fragrant than the first time. Doug said that at this point, you should be able to tell if the wine is off. But let's assume that the wine isn't off and start tasting.

Next, take a sip of the wine. Don't judge it, just let it be. Because at this step, the pH of your mouth and the pH of the wine are different and your taste buds don't want you to ingest something that is foreign. So you are just trying to acclimate your mouth to the wine.

For your second sip of the wine, take a bigger gulp and swish it all around like you would mouthwash before you swallow. Probably not a good idea to gargle with it, but you get the gist.

For your third and final taste in this process, your mouth is now acclimated to the pH of the wine and you can get an accurate taste and try to come up with something pithy to say about the wine so you sound knowledgeable.

And that is all there is to wine tasting.

I also learned that I'm not the world's worst photographer like I thought I was. All these photos reflect the four colors I'm working on for the Napa Valley Collection. They'll be up in a slideshow on the Sundara Yarn website shortly.

By Sundara on October 19, 2009 6:19 PM | Comments (4)