Practicality vs. Fun

When it comes to knitting I am always battling a line between being practical and having fun. Take for example my current project - a lace set of fingerless gloves and scarf. I bought the project after having taken a lace knitting course in my first year at Vogue Knitting Live so that I could reinforce what I learned about chart reading and lace work (well I had to reteach some of those skills in the two years since I bought the project....whoops!). Anyways, I am really happy with how beautiful the yarn is in this deep forest green color made by  Kramer, but I am starting to realize it is a really impractical project. When am I going to need lace weight fingerless gloves and a scarf?

So here is the big question, how much of knitting is for practicality's sake and how much is for the fun and joy of it? Now I know that most avid knitters would say that knitting is an addiction, a way of life, and so the projects are much more for the fun of learning a new technique or mastering a difficult pattern. However, for those of us in the low budgeted world of knitting, how much of our knitting passion can be invested in purely fun, decorative, and sometimes, impractical projects?

This is becoming quite a conundrum for me as a knitter. I think the best way for me to solve this problem is to make more money! Well, I don't think that is going to happen overnight. Until that happens I guess I will constantly be a bit between a rock and a hard place with this question. Then again, if this is a conundrum in my life, I guess I have to say things are going really well.

Does anyone have thoughts on the issue of practicality vs. fun when you are picking a new knitting project?

Until Next Time,
Broke Knitter