Knitting dillemma

I have been knitting a "lace panel pullover" for a couple of months now and the truth is I just don't love it. I love the yarn- Shokay Shambala in Orchid. So that is fiery pink and as soft as the underbelly of a Yak in the Himalaya's. Well that is where the yarn comes from.
But this yarn shows every stitch and I am not in love with this pattern. The increases and decreases show up and I don't think they look nice. Of course I made the required number of right leaning increases and left leaning increases but not necessarily in the right places.
Today I found another pattern which looks like a lot of fun. And this will be so soft and warm and very very pink. I will have yarn leftover but whatever! I can make super warm, very soft (is there any better kind) and very pink hats for years to come.
I think this yarn will substitute well, it will be easier to knit, even if I have to take out the bobbles which I am not particularly fond of, and as such will have to make a mental pattern adjustment as I knit this. I am too lazy to rewrite the pattern to adjust for this and it is mostly in chart form so I am doomed to rip this out a couple of times at least.
This shawl/cardigan/wrap will work well with my plans to keep the house cold this winter to save energy/the planet/money. It will be easier and yet still fun to knit.
But seriously, do I rip out the whole back and the three quarters of the front I have finished (for the third time) to start on something new? It will still not be mindless parent education class knitting, but I may be able to knit it during DWTS.
I need to find a good mindless knitting project for class, board meetings and fall television.
I really have serious dillema's which prevent me from getting much work done.

Respecting the hat!

Respecting the hat!
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

Naomi has claimed this hat for herself. I did not really make it for her, though I can't say I made it for myslef really either. I just made it out of Koigu as an exersize in fair isle. I will admit that I am not a fair isle knitter. I had to adapt this pattern from one published in Knitty to account for the finer yarn and so I had to carry the yarn for many stitches in the back. It was hard to keep the tension constant and it was hard to keep track of the pattern for me (who likes to knit while watching TV or sitting for some other reason). In retrospect I would have doubled up the yarn and used it that way.
So Naomi claimed the hat for herself. And I must say that I like seeing the hat and she does look very good in it. Well, this is what she does with my hard work! Actually she has been wearing it a lot and people were amazed to hear I had made it myself.

Gymnastics and Fencing

Gymnastics and Fencing
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

Some things that were drawable while waiting. See previous post about what I do when I tire of that.

Waiting

purse contents
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

While waiting for fencing, guitar or gymnastics to happen there is only so much to draw. So having drawn various aspects of each location (really, fencing is done in a nearly empty gym) and not being particularly keep on drawing children who are constantly moving during above mentioned activities, I pulled some stuff out of my purse and drew that. Now hopefully I will have something different in there next time. Or I could always draw my shoes I guess.

Sierra sketches

Sierra sketches 5
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

It has been a long and busy summer. The girls had several camps and I had a dance recital in August for which I had to rehearse many times. We had swimming every day and outings besides. And running two kids around is not conducive to sketching anyway. So I have been quiet in the blogosphere. Not that I am generally prolific, and being quiet is not in character for me in real life. Well, I am back!
For our family vacation we went to camp Montecito in the Sierra's. I would like to keep this place a secret because it was so great but I don't think that many people are reading this anyway. And those that do deserve to find out about it. It was family camp. My goal for vacation this year was to go someplace where I would not have to decide what was for dinner, I would not have to shop for it and fix it and I would not have to clean up after it. I also wanted a place where everyone could have some fun which did not require my organizational skills. OK, so I wanted a vacation for ME and I didn't really care about anyone else.
Well, we all had a great time. The girls did lots of activities with their camp groups. Naomi loves to play with kids her own age and lots of the activities were right up her alley. Julia was adored by the young women in charge of her age group and she did not want to leave their sides. The area was gorgeous and fishing in the lake proved to be the favorite activity of the kids. Adam even wrote a song about fishing in the lake which he performed at the variety show.
Adam and I went on several hikes which would have been too long and steep for the girls and I got to draw and sketch to my hearts content. Well, nearly... I am not sure I ever get enough drawing and sketching and I would have preferred to sit in the lodge in the evenings coloring in my sketches, but every evening there were social activities and other organized fun things to do. The upside is that I had great coloring pages to finish after we left and so I was able to enjoy camp for a few more days.
I also really got into Archery which is more relaxing than you would think. And having to call a ceasefire outside the archery range so you can hike out of camp is very exciting. The sketches above are from a hike we took right outside of camp. If you click on the picture you can see more sketches with commentary at Flikr.

Channel Islands Adventure

channelislands2008-3.jpg
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

I joined the Illustrated watercolor journaling Channel Islands Adventure this year for the first time. I drove down with another participant/assistant instructor, Kirsten. It was great to have a person in the car and we really bonded on the drive down. I am pretty outgoing but it felt great to have a friend before boarding the boat.
The boat was an 88 foot dive boat, the Vision, and there were 35 passengers, 6 crew and 1 naturalist. The itinerary gets set by the weather to some extent so we went onto two islands and spent a relatively short time on Anacapa. We spent an afternoon on Santa Cruz island. So all the paintings from Anacapa were drawn on the islands in a very short amount of time and painted on board. On Santa Cruz we hiked out to Potato Harbor overlook and painted pleine air, as well as doing several quick sketches. I just post a picture here of some of the things we saw on Anacapa and several other paintings are posted on Flikr.
Life was really getting to me before leaving and it was great to get away. The food was great and the crew was wonderful. Accommodating and cheerful and the energy on board was very positive. There was a mix of experienced watercolorist, people who dabble, like myself, and complete novices. Everyone just got along and was friendly and supportive of everyones efforts in painting. It was wonderful to be able to focus so completely on painting for a few days. We did not have to put the stuff away except to eat and then it all came right back out. We slept in bunks so there was not even a reason to go down there except to sleep. The rest of the time I was either painting inside or out, or on the islands.
I think the fact that we were on the boat really helped make this such a painterly experience, since there was nothing else to do, everyone else was doing it and there was no place else to go. It helps to practice intensely for a few days and I felt my skills improve. As one of my fellow students pointed out late one night "It is not easy to do something that is not easy to do". Really, this quote made sense that the time as well as getting us laughing.
The crew dove down and got us some interesting sea creatures to paint one afternoon and the captain made several detours to show us different views of the islands, like the Anacapa arch.
On the channel crossing on the way home we had 10 ft waves and quite a few people were not feeling well. I had decided to take dramamine since I had no idea if I would get sick or not. I did not.

Fitzgerald marine preserve

Fitzgerald marine preserve
Originally uploaded by jjs_37

This is a painting I did using a sketch in a sketchbook as a reference. It is usiing watercolor pencils on Arches cold press paper. While I am happy with how the cliffs and the trees turned out on this drawing/painting, I am not so sure that I like the water. The purple seemed like an unusual color which might have been wrong in the cliffs but I think it ultimately works. As usual I am not getting a good scan which represents the drawing accurately but using the color enhancement feature makes it look more untrue. I will have to learn to adjust in photoshop at some point.
Now that we have spring break I hope we can go to the beach one day and I can look at the waves. But there are a ton of other things to accomplish during spring break besides that.
When life feels so full and frankly stressful, I really feel the need to head out into nature and draw. Being around the house and doing the chores really feels like a drag in that case. Waiting for phone calls, checking email, which overwhelms me these days, and stressing about the tasks I need to accomplish and if I will remember them. Yuk, yuk and triple yuk!