The next blanket

 The next blanket, #182, was not going to be any particular colour.  To the red I added brown, blue, green and grey.  I'm pleased with the result.  The colours merge nicely, with none too prominent.

I unravelled this simple hand knitted grey top.  A lace knitted yoke with a slit for neck and stocking stitch body stitches picked up and knitted downwards.  It fitted me perfectly, so I wore it for a while.  It is a 4 ply weight yarn knitted on large needles.  I think the yarn is a wool alpaca blend.

Account for 2016

I did quite well as far as buying less yarn went in 2016, until late November.  I had cut my charity shop budget in half, and I managed to stay within it, and it went towards buying half the amount of yarn.  This is until late November when I found 19 hanks of aran weight wool alpaca yarn in natural grey.  I bought it without hesitation while realising what it did to my budget.  After that I gave up, and bought whatever I liked.  The total was still less than half of the previous year.

Another thing that undid me was purchases outside charity shops, mainly in John Lewis.  They started selling odd balls of Rowan wool at charity shop prices.  If I would buy it in a charity shop, of course I would buy it in John Lewis.









I found that the weight of finished items was smaller than 2015, and that was as expected.  It was still nearly 20.5kg, and I'm very happy with it.  I have stopped stressing.  I will take time over knitting and enjoy it.

I had an idea that, in 2017, I would focus on weight of yarn bought rather than budget.  Unfortunately I went to John Lewis in the second week, and spent all of my January allowance there.  So now I think I should go back to my December state and buy anything I like.  With storage restraints at the back of mind and the realisation that I will have to knit all of this sometime perhaps I will refrain from excessive purchases.