There's been so many things that have been affected by COVID, it's hard to quantify all of them. One of them (at least for me) has been how my knitting 'culture' has changed. When it comes to how this global 'event' has changed knitting, I personally feel it's been a bit of a 'mixed bag'... Some things are more frustrating, some challenging, and surprisingly, some ultimately rewarding.
I know one thing that I miss; "shopping!". The act of plunging your hands into a bin of yarn and feeling the fibers against your skin. Holding a variety of skeins up together, to see how they 'play' together. Those actions have an effect on me, in that they get my creative 'juices' flowing, and that's oftentimes where the 'what if' ideas start. These very physical actions just can't be done in the virtual shopping world we find ourselves relegated to, they can only be found in your LYS. Having those stores shut down for so long was a test of my patience.
Another challenge that derived solely from the store closures was the elimination of 'knit night'. I had two different knitting-in-public nights that I'd try to participate in every week. One of them actually ended pre-COVID, because the owner of the LYS ended up selling her shop, and the new owner didn't really create the same welcoming atmosphere. So when COVID hit, and my one remaining knit night was 'banned', it was a real adjustment, one that I'm not sure I'm still managing. Perhaps that's because that was a knit night 'for the boys'... It was a men's knitting night, and it gave me a sense of community that other gatherings just didn't. Having a group of men sitting around a table, each working on whatever they brought that week, gives them the 'permission' and encouragement to partake in an activity that historically has been 'ladies only'. We can learn from each other, help each other with a challenging section of the project, and praise one another for the progress that we've made. This 'safe space' to explore and foster those skills are, in my world, worth protecting. As of yet, I'm still waiting for the 'boys night' to restart, and so I continue to persevere.
The fact that the stores were closed for so long, led me to a rewarding discovery. (Thankfully, the closures are beginning to wane). I found that in the height of the shutdown, since standard shopping was not an option, I was forced to 'shop my stash'. It was then that I realized that I'd truly begun to exemplify the term SABLE. (If you don't know what that is, send me a message, I'll give you the scoop...). I was reorganizing my stash, and in the process, found previous 'projects' in a whole variety of stages of completion. Some with a swatch completed, others basically only needing finishing (weaving in ends, blocking, seaming, ect.). And not surprisingly, others that I couldn't figure out what I was thinking of in the first place. (LOL... go figure!)
So I started selecting some of these 'forgotten' items, and continued knitting. As I was digging up the past, I found a sense of peace, not only because I was (again) doing something that I loved, but it almost felt like I was attempting to complete something that I'd 'failed' at in the past. I got a new appreciation for the skills I'd learned, and the abilities that I'd learned to cultivate. Or perhaps, I'd just figured out how to be more patient with myself, and how to problem solve difficult techniques.
So as I continue to ponder how this pandemic has changed our lives, I realize that everything changes our lives. Some more drastically than others, some in ways that you really don't see at the time. It's all a matter of how we adapt. We also change our 'reality' every day, little by little. I find that (albeit sometimes challenging), working those changes with a hopeful outlook and an "I can do this" mentality is really worth the effort.
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