How the Knitting Landscape is Changing in Response to COVID-19

The times, they are a-changin’, and the knitting industry has had to change along with it. The COVID-19 pandemic brought many fiber organizations to a point of adapt or die. Some pivoted quickly, some slowly, but I can’t think of anyone in this industry who hasn’t had to change something about the way they do business in order to stay afloat.

Even the Washington Post has noticed. When I read their article on the projected (additional?) yarn shortage this winter, I thought, “Well, we knitters have been stashing for this all our lives.”

This time last year, I hadn’t heard of such a thing as a virtual fiber festival. Now, I’ve not only attended almost a dozen of them, I’ve taught at a fair number.

I had a hard time finding listings of these in the beginning. There are plenty of websites that list in-person knitting and fiber events, but as of this summer I couldn’t find a single one that listed virtual festivals, so I started my own listing. Keeping that list current has helped me get to know events I wouldn’t have found otherwise. There are online festivals happening everywhere, and they are accessible to more people than ever. This week alone, you could choose to visit not just a big festival like Stitches, but a festival in the Ozarks, or in rural Pennsylvania, or Barcelona.

I know the industry is suffering, and that the online festival parade hasn’t really made up for lost business for most suppliers. After virtual Rhinebeck — an event that is the major sales event for many in a typical year — friends in the business reported they did only 10% of the business they are accustomed to doing. I certainly hope that for those folks, online sales and the continued appearance of smaller festivals will keep them in business. Times are hard, and people are trying. I guess that’s all you really can do.

That’s the matched pair of circumstances we’re all dealing with: money is tight, and knitting can be considered a luxury item, but lots of us rely on knitting either for our livelihood or for the maintenance of our sense of well-being. This makes me even more grateful for those who have found ways to create and foster connection within the knitting community in these times.

Shall we add to the bucket the very contentious issue of the difficulties some people are having using Ravelry? It is a bit heartbreaking to me that at a time when we all need electronic connection so much, this platform is not available for some, and a source of division for many.

But people are getting creative, and trying to find viable alternatives. The Indy Fiber List, and Yarn Database are just two sites trying to fill that void; I’ve heard rumblings of some others in development, too.

And on the positive side, LYS knit nights are becoming not-so local, in a good way! The Tuesday night knitting group at my LYS, Uncommon Threads, has grown to include some regulars who couldn’t do the in-person group due to rush-hour traffic in our area. And I’ve become a regular at the Virtual Stitch Group hosted by the Yarnover Truck in Southern California, which I never would have had access to in pre-COVID days.

Last weekend I attended a Halloween-themed knit-in hosted by the Fiberworld folks, and oh my, wasn’t it wonderful! I had no idea it was possible to miss so many people who I’d only met online, but it was, and I did, and seeing them again was a real treat.

Then I got to virtually attend Open Farm Day at Morehouse Farm without changing out of my pajama bottoms. I’m going to be helping out with their knitalong of my Fizzy Drinks pattern starting this Friday, and I’m pretty sure I can do that in my pajamas as well.

Yesterday I released a new pattern, Hope and Cheer, and that pattern owes its existence to someone I’ve only met online. Tina from Tina’s Toasty Toes encouraged me to develop the pattern and the upcoming classes where we’ll be making the pattern together. (She’ll have kits for sale shortly for the general public; the initial ones were limited to class students.) For that matter, my teaching virtual classes on Zoom is another one of these crazy, only-in-COVID-times evolutions.

As much as I fervently hope we can all meet in person again, I also hope that many of the things we’re learning to do virtually remain in some form. We’re learning valuable things about how to reach out to one another in spite of obstacles. We’re learning how to make events accessible to those who can’t travel. We’re being creative and crafty, because we’re knitters, and knitters are good at that sort of thing. And I believe that will outlive COVID.