Hi everyone, and welcome! (Long post alert! )
A NEW BEGINNING How often we wish for another chance to have a fresh beginning. A chance to blot out our mistakes and change failure into winning. It does not take a new year to make a brand new start. It only takes the deep desire to try with all your heart. To live a little better and always be forgiving, to add a little sunshine to the world in which we are living. So, never give up in despair and think that you are through, For there’s always a tomorrow and a chance to start anew. - Helen Steiner Rice
When I read the above poem by chance a long time ago, I honestly didn’t believe.
I’d quit a reasonably well-paying job to become a housewife (a role i was singularly unsuited for). Books, and finally crafting pulled me out of a deep depression that threatened to engulf me entirely. The fact that I was unable to conceive was just icing on the cake.
Finally i tried to find ways in which i could “find myself” again. I did not go for retreats or anything. I stayed where i was and introspected. It also helped that i had (have) and amazing group of friends aka cheerleaders, who’ve supported me all along!
And then my DD was born, and its like a switch got turned on! I was able to focus my mind towards creativity, rather, just making things. Since then I’ve just been moving forward at a break-neck speed, and juggling more balls that I’m not sure i can manage :).
Design Store:
This came up with an opportunity to design for ilikeknitting.com. I had submitted a proposal for a gradient scarf, not understanding that i was supposed to get the yarn, not they send to me. So i was left struggling since we did not get gradients in India at the time.
Getting a set of single skeins dyed was too expensive. So i finally hit on a solution: dye it myself!
i was reasonably confident, since i had dyed cotton in the past, and was sure I could pull it off. Well, I did pull it off.
The pattern, Daybreak Scarf is available in my ravelry store and in the patterns section of the website.
What i hadn’t expected was my DH to be impressed enough with it to comment that maybe i should look at getting my own name for dyeing there (the pattern linked the yarn seller’s name, not mine).
Little did I know how prophetic his comment would be.
Yarn Store
The store was an odd story. Remember the friends i mentioned in the beginning? well, we used to chat/whastapp/video call on a regular basis. One slow crafting day, we decided to look for new yarn options through various online resources including wholesale.
So while hunting for yarn, I decided to look for silk yarn options inside India. We did have a silk yarn retailer within Bangalore, but i was curious. Imagine my surprise, when i found quite a few! i never even thought of exploring this option. On a whim, i asked a few of the wholesalers to send me samples and their T&C.
i decided to dye the samples to check if this was something I could manage. Imagine my thrilled face when i saw my results!
Then came selling to possibility to my family. The main concern was that it should not affect the baby, which i promised that I would ensure safety measures. It was an easy thing to promise, since the baby’s safety was everything!
They have been at the forefront of every step and decision I take, and am always thankful for their support, including taking this next step.
I finally started off in 2018 and have mainly run the store on WhatsApp, with a brief sojourn on Etsy.
The other important part of the store: my customers. I was blessed to have an amazing group of customers to came back for me, and encouraged me at each step.
In the present:
I have kept the yarn store and design store in 2 different online spaces: both on Ravelry and Instagram. While i will continue to maintain them separately even in the future, I decided to bring them together on my personal website.
The reason for this is that I want to integrate them under the name Sunrays Creations (as opposed to the design store which is on my own name).
I’ll talk about the name, the logo and a lot more stuff in the next blog post.
Stay tuned!