The 10 Stitch Blanket/Taking Down The Tree

 

   Some of you may remember that I started knitting a 10 stitch blanket in an effort to use up some chunky yarn from my stash. Along the way I learned a couple of new skills and things were going well.

   Now I have developed a new problem. I'm become addicted to knitting the blanket. Now that I have mastered the skills, I don't have to think about what I'm doing. It's very restful and I like the feel of the yarn in my hands.

    My plan was top stop knitting when I got to the end of the yarn that I have. Unfortunately, I have only a couple skeins of yarn left and I want to keep knitting. I want to make the blanket bigger. In fact I want to make it big enough to wrap around myself.

   This means I'm going to have to buy more yarn, which kind of defeats the purpose of this project. I started this project to reduce my yarn stash, not add to it. I could justify the purchase of extra yarn by telling myself that I'm buying it for the project and it will not increase my yarn stash.

   I think I may have hit on another idea. I have a lot of yarn that is medium weight. I could use this yarn as long  I hold two strands together. That would do two things. It would allow me to make my blanket bigger. It would also help me to use more yarn in my stash. I wouldn't have to buy more yarn!

   This is a really exciting idea. I have many different colours of yarn that I can use in several combinations. I could get really creative with this. I'll have to sort through my stash to find yarns that would look good together.

   We took down our tree yesterday. I know that's a long time to leave a tree up. We always get a real tree and we leave it up as long as we can because they are expensive. I also like the look of the coloured lights.

   I don't like artificial trees. They look fake, have no scent and if a cat decides he wants to climb it the tree will fall down and all the ornaments will get broken.

   I have mixed feelings about real trees. Cutting down a tree for the purpose of using it as a decoration in my house for three to four weeks seems wrong. If left in the wild the tree could provide shelter for animals and do other things to help the environment. The only thing that makes me feel better is at least a real tree decomposes and the nutrients go back into the earth.

   I wish it were possible to have a tree in a pot. I could have the tree outside in the summer. In the winter I could bring it in and decorate it for Christmas. In the spring the tree could go outside again.

  This is impossible I know, a tree the size of our usual Christmas tree would be much too large for a pot. A tree in a pot would be too small to decorate and have lights put on it.

   Maybe someday I will find a good compromise.