The Bathtub Swimming Experiment and Other Pandemic-Era Knitting Fables

When the pandemic hit, the undaunted members of the Ball's Falls Knitting Club agreed they would continue to meet by Zoom. However, the isolation and the closure of their local yarn store had its impact on their knitting projects. Rubetta, for instance, decided to take up speed knitting and allow herself just three hours per project so as to have more time for her new pandemic hobbies: gerbil breeding and writing novels in a language she made up herself.     

Veraminta, meanwhile, ran short of yarn, and had to get creative with the all the throws, cushion covers, and bathmats in the house.

Valma made it one of her pandemic goals to learn to do her hair, and she found braiding such a challenge that she found it necessary to practice braiding at every opportunity.

Mavis went in a more artistic direction with her knitting, and designed a piece that commemorated the most important and fulfilling relationship of her pandemic life.   

Luella found it so difficult to focus during quarantine that, when she got bored with the new dress she had designed, she adapted her plan to have elbow sleeves and fringe from the thighs down. After all, she reminded herself, the really important thing was to have a sense of accomplishment and completion.

Aliviyah decided to prepare for post-pandemic life by knitting herself a new beach ensemble. She was pleased with the resulting look, but she did have concerns about how well it was going to stay on when it got wet given that her bathtub swimming experiment had proved discouraging. 

Janis was so busy with working from home and homeschooling her triplets that she tried to combine her line drawing art projects with her knitting projects so as to have time for both. 

Beverley decided that her pandemic knitting challenge would be to use up her entire yarn stash... in a single project. 

Like Veraminta, Donnelda had a yarn shortage problem, which she dealt with by making embellishments for her existing sweaters out of what scraps she did have on hand. 

Asher decided to channel his pandemic time into launching a new knitting publication. The rest of the Ball's Falls Knitting Club sincerely wished him the best with his new publishing endeavour, but they couldn't imagine where he was going to find content for it.