I knew I didn't belong here.

You Belong in Rome You're a big city girl with a small town heart. Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian men - could life get any better? What City Do You Belong in? Take This Quiz :-)

At long last...

Yes, that's right, finally the pictures of the Princess Leia costume I've toiled so endlessly upon. As you can see I never did put a hood on it and I gave up on the belt (actually I never gave it a realtry, too hard) using silver ribbon in its stead. I think the general idea is still conveyed. As always, you can click on the pictures for a larger version. Darth's fourth birthday party was a success. He got SO much stuff! Lots of puzzles which was very neat. He had a blast though he only stayed in his costume for a half hour. In fact everyone ditched their costumes by 2:00. My sister's Yoda costume for her son turned out great. It was a big hit, too. It was all just sickeningly cute. Please note his authentic, light-up, Yoda lightsaber. It's tiny! Darth got his very own Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader color change lightsaber for his birthday and today he was playing with it, hitting the button to change the color and saying, "Good. Bad. Good. Bad. Good. Bad..." Happy Halloween and may the force be with you!

Why child safety locks don't work.

Wanna see what I look like?

Since it's Monday and both kids have come down with a cold, I'm going to take it easy on all of us and have this entry be mostly pictures. We (Red Todd Kidd, Me, the kids, My sister, her husband, their son, and my little brother) went to the pumpkin patch over the weekend and got our pumpkins. The kids had a GREAT time, especially Darth. Best of all no one barfed on any of the rides. I still have quite a bit of knitting to do for Darth's birthday. I broke down and started another Bubby so that the kids wouldn't fight over the first one I made. I have one more leg to go and then it's sweater. I have some more knit picks sock yarn leftovers (that's what the first one was made out of Sock Landscapes in Yukon) in the Sock Garden Zinnia. Should be pretty cute. I have to say the Bubby pattern is much better the second time around. I've used it as more of a guideline than a pattern and it's working beautifully. In fact I may have to give Darth the second one since it is a birthday present and all. He should get the good one right? Besides Lola is totally in love with the one in the blue sweater, I don't think she'll go for a swap. Plus Darth's current favorite color is red so his should get the red/orange/yellow sweater. (That's not my husband -----> that's my brother-in-law with my nephew that's 3 days older than Lola) Which brings me to the other knitting I have to churn out right quick. Darth's slipper boots. We went to our LYS on Saturday and he picked out a hank of Eco Wool in red. Lucky us all cascade was on sale for 20% off! I wish I could have bought a bunch of stuff but I had to spend $$ for Darth's birthday so just his wool and some to finnish RedTodd Kidd's Satchel. That's right, I aim to finish that thing next week after the birthday party is past and things calm down.

Possibly the saddest Bubby ever.

I hate this pattern. It's confusing in places. It hurts my hands to knit with fat yarn on skinny needles. Thus my Bubby is possibly the saddest looking Bubby anyone has made. His head is pointy, his arms are crooked (and sideways), his legs are different lengths, his feet are weird, his eyes are misshapen because I suck at embroidering faces on things, he's just a sad, sad little bear. I knit him a sweater to hide his crooked sideways arms. So sad. Doesn't he look depressed? To top it all off Lola Beans loves the sad little thing. It's not for her, it's Darth's birthday present, she can't have it! I have enough yarn to make one for her. And a little verigated red/yellow/orange sweater. Crap. Add another thing to the list.

"Sarah needs"

Google "Sarah needs" in quotes and this is what you get. Try it with your own name, it's fun. Sarah needs to feel peaceful, and also to feel equal to (or better than) everyone else. Ha! Ain't that the truth! Sarah Needs to Vent. And she does, endlessly. Sarah needs a team of committed people to pray for her and her ministry. Yeah, uh, you do that. Sarah needs no explanation. And she won't give one! Sarah needs to lighten up. That's what my husband would say. Sarah needs to be an only dog and probably no small children. Wait, what? Sarah needs Nat and her computing skills to survive and find whatever she needs to keep ahead of her faceless pursuers. I'm being persued? Oh no! Sarah needs to figure out what happened in her house before her family moved there. And now I'm haunted too? Sarah needs cheerleading. I do NOT! Sarah needs to have a stake put through her heart. Only if you catch me cheerleading. Sarah needs more risk in her life. I'm already being persued, what more do you want? Sarah needs to use her voice a little more. HA! Sarah needs to come to grip with the fact that she's not a very attractive person. Hey! Sarah needs more cash, cuz killing terrorists is expensive work. Shh, don't let my secret out! Sarah needs to be put away to keep other people safe from her. Yeah, like terrorists. Sarah needs to tear down the walls she’s built up between herself and God and to open her eyes to the Lord’s relentless pursuit of her. So, God is persuing me? Wow, he's gonna be hard to get away from. I get how my persuers are faceless now but how many gods are after me? Crap, a whole pantheon? What did I do? Oh yeah, the terrorists. I thought I was doing good! Don't hold it against me! Sarah needs to talk to you about another one of your inventions. Which invention? Why do I need to talk about it? Is it cool? Does it suck? Will it help me kill terrorists or get away from The Pantheon? Sarah needs a series of videos devoted entirely to her. I have a feeling this was probably dirty. Sarah needs a special talisman to defeat the Silver Wraith. And the terrorists. And the pantheon of gods that persue me facelessly and relentlessly. This was hard because I kept getting other peoples lists from their blogs. After much time and considerable effort I have put together a list I believe is truly original. Until tommorrow when some other Sarah doesn't check her work and includes all my stuff in her list. Oh well.

New blog game, thought I'd give it a spin.

Here's the game -Do a Google image search of the following and post the first (or favorite) result for each: *The name of the town where you were born- San Diego (first image) *The name of the town where you live now- San Diego (Third image, for some reason it's "Portland's favorite man in a dress") *Your name- Sarah Sisson (maiden name) yeilded the best image *Your grandmother's name- Sally *Your favorite food- Mexican food (this one's great, I have NO idea how it came up in the search) *Your favorite drink- Coke *Your favorite song- I don't know so I searched "I don't know" *Your favorite smell- Mmmmmm

Updates.

The Leia Costume The Leia dress is all but finnished and relativley without incident. The first one was too smal so I just threw it on top of the remaining fabric and cut around it. All that's left to do on it is the hood and the belt. I'm not sure how to do the belt so I'll probably do it at the last minute and it will look terrible. I added leather soles to the boots. Lola Beans is wearing them now since it's cold out. The Weather It was raining so hard a little while ago that you couldn't see across the street. Weird. The Dentist When I went in yesterday he told me that what is causing my pain is one of ther following things: a) The tooth he put a major filling in really needs a root canal, this was always a possibility or b) My TMJ has been aggrivated by all the dental work (holding my mouth open super wide for so long, and then clenched tightly closed when I sleep) or c) A combination of a and b Delightful. The solution to this is to either have a root canal or get an orthotic and see if either of those help. So I get to go have a(nother) root canal today because I'll get instant results with that. Then we can talk price on an orthotic. I cannot afford this. Literally, I can't. I may have to pull my son out of preschool because his tuition is exactly the amount that the monthly dental bill is going to be after the root canal today. In Other Knitting I have started a Bubby for Darth for his birthday out of the leftover Andean Treasure from the Leia hat. I have made little or no progress on Wavy. I pulled Elizabeth I off the needles. I put the Garish Sock on stitch holders so I could use my size 3s for Bubby. I will be starting some felted boots for Darth for his birthday. He requested red ones. It gets mighty cold here when you can't afford to turn on the heat so I'm happy to oblige him.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!

God I hate sewing. I hate everything about it. I hate cutting out patterns. I hate not being able to find the good scissors. I hate cutting out the fabric with the teeny-tiny scissors that for some reason are the only ones that can cut fabric. I hate lugging the sewing machine out of the top of the closet. I hate trying to find the bobbins. I hate winding bobbins. I hate trying to sew around a curve. I hate having to iron all the seams. I hate having to start all over because I did something stupid 15 minutes in to a three hour project. I hate sewing. I think this is because I'm not any good at it. I have no formal training. I have no innate ability. I also have a friend who is a sewing godess. She called me this evening and in the course of conversation revealed that she made a Victorian bustle skirt in one night, without a pattern. I'm sure it's perfect, or at least looks it. She probably looks even taller and thinner and more fabulous in it too. Because she's just one of those people that's good at everything and always looks fabulous. If I didn't love her, I'd hate her. But you can't hate Kaylee. She's too awesome to hate. In fact, if she were here she'd have made this whole damn Leia costume for me in a half hour without so much as a complaint. I'm alternately wistful and bitterly jealous. Especially when the first thing Red Todd Kidd asks whenever I start any project that isn't knitted is: "Did you call Kaylee?" Regardless of how valid a question it is or how poor my sewing skills are or how much I hate sewing it still bugs me that he thinks I can't do anything without her help. So what if it's totally true! He shouldn't know it and he certainly shouldn't say it! What a jerk. As you may have guessed. I drafted out my paper bag pattern for the Leia costume. Twice, as a matter of fact. The first time I didn't account for seam allowances. Yeah, I totally rule. I've gotten so far as cutting out the fabric pieces. Tomorrow comes the ever more entertaining task of ironing all the pieces and sewing them together. Sigh. I wish Kaylee was here...

Holiday SP Buttons

This is the fourth time I've tried to post this. Something different for this round since this round is, well, something different. I can do others if no one likes these, I know my sense of humor isn't always the concensus. I can also resize these if they're too big. Humphrey Bogart Salvador Dali Albert Einstein Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi Grouch Marx

Mbfmf

Yeah, that's what I probably sounded like yesterday. I wouldn't know though because I can't remember. I had all my dental work done under sedation, hence my blogging absence. It was nice to not mentally be at my dental appointment. I'm basically done with dental hell. I think I still need one more filling replaced, my crown put on, and a cleaning but that's all easy stuff. The wisdom teeth are out and gone and almost all the fillings are done. Hurts like hell today, though. I'm subsisting on cans of Slim fast until it doesn't hurt to chew. I really want some solid food. As for my projects: I have (temporarily?) given up on Elizabeth I. While I decide what to do I'm knitting up some white boots for Lorelei's Princess Leia costume. I realized I had some feltable white yarn and plenty of shoe leather sitting around. How far gone are you when it's easier to make shoes than buy them? Don't answer that. I'm also working on some Holiday SP buttons. I think I've got something special for everyone. Very different.

Deep Breath

Okay, I give up. Elizabeth I has kicked my ass. The pattern is great and I'm sure it's beautiful but that Alpaca Cloud is just TOO thin for me. I don't have enough lace experience to use that fine a yarn. My big fat fingers can't manipulate it into anything more than a mess. I want to do it. In fact, I have a bit of a stomach ache now that I've realized that I'm not going to be able to do it without doing a few other lace projects first. I don't have time to do a couple of practice projects! Look at my side bar! AAAAAARGH! Deep breath. On the brighter side of knitting, I finished knitting the Princess Leia hat. I got the pattern from a website that has a bunch of chemo-cap patterns, the one I used is called the Amelia Earhart Aviator Cap. The pattern calls for worsted weight or DK weight yarn and size 8 needles so I just went to sport weight and used size 6 needles. It worked like a charm! The hat is very stretchy and fits my 16 month old as well as my 3 year old. For average sized kids I'd say it'd fit a 1 1/2 to a 4 year old. I've finished the buns as well. I braided the yarn instead of doing I-cord like someone had suggested. Cutting that many lengths of yarn was almost as much work as the I-cord but I managed. I constructed the buns like a braided rug so I could make sure they'd stay together. All that's left is to put them on the hat. That may prove to be the most difficult task as I have to figure out how they need to be positioned which requires putting the hat on the baby and messing with it. She doesn't like when you mess with her head. Oh yeah, other specs on the hat: I used Andean Treasure in Woods. I highly recommend this yarn for this hat as it looks beautiful and is SUPER SOFT. It took less than one skein to do the hat and about 3/4 of a skein to do the braids. I had no idea how much it was going to take so I had ordered four skeins so now I have two+ leftover skeins sitting around. Hmmmm. What to so with that beautiful alpaca? I'm thinking of being good and sweet and making two more hats like this for actual child cancer patients. The alpaca is so soft that I'm sure it'd make a good chemo cap. The only thing is that it's brown. What sick kid wants a brown hat? So now there's guilt involved. Ug. Maybe I should order some more alpaca in pretty kid-friendly colors and make hats. No, I'm broke, can't do that. Plus look at the side bar, EEK! No, don't look at the side bar, never look at the side bar! Deep breath. As you can see from the pictures I finished the hat before I finished this post. Red Todd Kidd took over the computer last night so I just saved this as a draft. As soon as I finished the hat this afternoon I knew I HAD to get the pictures up. TOO CUTE! I'm so proud of this project! Yea me!

Alpaca

Alpaca. Al. Pa. Ca. Baby alpaca. AAAAAAAAAAAAALPAAAAAAAAAAAAACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Sweet, soft, baby alpaca. Uh, I got my knitpicks order. Pictures later. I'm too busy touching the Aaaaaaalpaaaaaacaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Okay, as you can see I got the pictures up. That's three balls of Alpaca Cloud in Moss, Iris, and Autumn with the pattern for Elizabeth I. The pic up at the top is the Alpaca Cloud with the four balls of Andean Treasure in Woods for Miss Lola Beans' Princess Leia hat. I hope it's cold on Halloween because that sucker is gonna be WARM. Mmmmmmmmm alpaca.

I'm it again.

Four Truths and a Lie: 1)I live across the street from a well known fine artist. Indeed I do. I live across the street from William Glen Crooks. He lives next door to the guy we think is selling drugs. 2) I stole a cow from someone's yard. Hey, I never said it was a real cow. It was a tacky lawn ornament. I hid it in the garage for several months and then we put it in their neighbor's yard. They were baffled. 3) I gave the lead guitarist from Foreigner a bloody nose. True again. I was walking out of a radio station with a friend who had just been on the radio and he was walking in. I nailed him with the door. The whole situation was made more humorous by the fact that I had no idea who he was until we heard him talking about it on the radio about 10-15 minutes later. 4) In my younger days, I appeared in a "Hot Girls with Guns" calendar. This one's the lie! 5) I have met all of the surviving members of The Doors. The San Diego Rep did a production called Celebration of the Lizard many years back that featured poetry by Jim Morrison and music by The Doors. All the remaining members attended on opening night and I met them. My friend's mom hit on Ray Manzerick right in front of his wife. It was pretty funny. Knottyknitpicks is the winner!

Overalls of Shame and Cemetary Hopping

The knitter's nightmare, The Overalls of Shame as they've been dubbed in prominant circles (yes, the knittyboard is a prominant circle because I like to feel important), are going to be knitted by an actual person other than the designer. That brave soul is me. They are the gag gift to end all gag gifts and I can't take it any longer. After MONTHS of looking at them all over the internet I broke down and swapped for the magazine that had the pattern. It arrived just yesterday and it was everything I had ever hoped for. The downer in this project is that I can't afford the yarn for them, I really can't afford any non-Christmas gift yarn at all which is why all my new projects over there are Christmas gifts. But those awesome knittyheads with senses of humor as dark as mine heard my plea and are sending me their extra balls of Glitterspun, Magic Stripes, and even some Fun Fur for trim. What that means is that these things are going to be about a thousand colors and trimmed at the thighs (and possibly the straps) with Fun Fur, and you thought they couldn't get any uglier. You were wrong. So very wrong. Which brings me to the question everyone has been asking, "Sarah, why would you spend time and effort on these hideous things? Is there something wrong with you?" Yes, something is wrong with me, perhaps even a multitude of things, but that's not why I want to do this. I'm doing this for some very special relatives of mine. My best girls in the world. My sister and my three girl cousins (one of which isn't in this picture, she had to stay home that night). Yes, that's right I'm doing this because I know that then I will win the ongoing gag gift competition between myself and said relatives. Previous gifts have included a Learn to do the Macerena video, a candle in the shape of a shriner monkey, a t-shirt beset with bows and a scrawled with a magic marker stating, "My favorite relative gave me this shirt." We're strange people, we know. We knew that the night we went all over town looking for cemeteries to spook ourselves out. The one from the picture is in Old Town San Diego, the famous grave of Yankee Jim, in fact. Really it was a fun night despite the fact that nothing spooky happened. We did have a few moments of panic in the middle of nowhere when we thought we might run out of gas. It just seems a shame that I missed the big scare a few weeks before: my sister had dropped me off at home and was taking the girls back to her place when they drove past this thing. It wasn't all well lit at the time and passing it at 45 miles an hour all they knew was that something large and inhuman was looming over the road. Ah, to be scared by a lawn ornament. I miss the best stuff. So anyway, I'm going to make the Overalls of Shame. It's going to be awesome.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Yeah I'm pretty sure one of the kids muttered that in their sleep Wednesday night. What? Your kids don't quote Shakespeare at you threateningly in their sleep? Anyway, Thurday was an awful and LONG day. In fact, I seriously considered making Red Todd Kidd stay home on Friday just because I couldn't deal anymore. I was sick of sick kids. Too hard. We did have a very nice weekend, obviously since I haven't blogged Since the dreaded Thursday of Doom. We went to see Serenity on Sunday. Don't worry no spoilers here. I won't say a word about the actual movie. All I'll say about the experience was that I have never been so caught up in anything fictional. No book, movie, story, RPG, or TV show has ever sucked me in like Firefly. I really felt like I knew the characters. I loved the series and the movie simply carries on, as it should. It is excellent and painful and I can't wait to see where it goes from here. I'm making good progress on Wavy. I've made it through three pattern repeats and I'm happy with that. I admit that I'm racing against my knitpicks order since the instant I have new yarn I have to cast on with it. A new yarn AND a new pattern? Over, I won't get back to Wavy for a good long time so I need to hustle. Poor Garish Socks hanging in limbo over there, I'll never finish those things. Sigh. Okay, I've got knitting to do!