Thirty years ago in a land far, far away....Walker was born. He's lived in many places over the years, baby to young boy; teenager to young man.

Here's to many more years. You keep me young. Happy birthday, pumpkin.

(not a posed picture)

So, even though this is late, I thought I'd talk about my trip to Stitches West.

I went with my friend Sarah, and we met up with some other friends, Erica, Adam, and Deb at the event. I didn't have any big projects in mind, so I knew I wouldn't be buying a lot. (Only using a very limited amount of cash helped, too.) The featured booth was, of course the XRX/Knitter's Magazine booth. Since they are the main sponsor of the event, that wasn't surprising. The booth featured samples from Victorian Lace Today, the new book from XRX, which I have. The author, Jane Sowerby was there, signing books at all the booths. I saw her everywhere! I approached her and told her I really liked her book. She was nice enough to me, but another woman was trying to show off her hand-made stitch markers and Jane was having none of it. "... when you knit lace, with fine yarn, you don't want it to get caught on these ... I use just a loop of yarn ..." The other woman was getting upset, so I just scooted away.

Both Sarah and I have an interest in lace knitting and socks. I found some beautiful lace silk/yak at Skaska Designs, by Galina Khmeleva, author of [Gossamer

Now, a lot of people understand retail therapy as therapy that is accomplished by spending money.

While I enjoy spending time looking at and buying yarn, I know it's not always in my best interests to do so. (Well, the buying part at least. I feel that looking at yarn is only helping me become a more informed consumer.)

This is an important issue. So many knitters I know either in "real life" or in the blog world have problems controlling their spending and the resulting stash. So many of us have out-of-control debt, and spending on yarn is just a fraction of that debt.

I am proud to say that I have eliminated my own credit card debt. It feels really good, and I don't miss those payments every month.

But I do have a lot of yarn, nonetheless. I have 4 large-ish boxes that are pretty much stuffed with yarn. I love "window shopping" online all the time, but in order to overcome that URGE to bring it home, I have resorted to a tricking myself with a special box of my most special yarns. I call it my Yarn Store.

There's a stash of lace-weight mohair in the top left, some Rowan Silk Wool in the top right, some Noro Silk Garden. My "store" also has a skein of Sea Silk, bamboo laceweight, hand-dyed sock yarns, and

Some people are struck with inspiration and are immediately decided on a project. I, however, while sometimes decisive, often need time to settle on a specific project with a specific yarn. I know what I have (that's one list), and I keep another list of projects I wanted to make. Several months ago I joined the two lists into the keystone list-nerd "knitlist" spreadsheet. I added a section for completed projects, which is a nice motivational touch -- "look how many projects I've finished since the beginning of the year!"

The list gets updated when I get new yarn, or if I finally figure out what to do with those three skeins of steel gray Kid Silk Haze (hasn't happened yet ...), or if I have still more projects that I want to make. I've got the total yardage information for each yarn in my stash, so that I can compare what I have to the project requirements. Yes, I am a party animal.

I've had my next lace project in mind for awhile. I splurged a little on the yarn for it, but when I pick up this project, I can't believe how luxurious it is.

I got Sundara's silk lace yarn in a solid blue, but even the solid color has just a hint of subtle variation. The sheen is amazing, I feel like I'm knitting a jewel.

Of course, we're still without a camera, so I can't show you my progress so far -- but I've only knit about 7 rows, so it really doesn't look like much.

I'm using Eunny's Print o' the Wave pattern (pdf) Her work is amazing, and she's very knowledgeable about many knitting techniques.

(By the way, I'm very proud of this entry; all sorts of links and HTML. Walker helped me, but I feel so cool. I'm a hacker, yeah.)