Category: CIT

CIT, life, sewing

What happened to me??

christinahopgood
So my last post is from the end of Frocktober!  That’s quite a while ago.  I ended up making $641 for Frocktober, which is pretty good!  So why haven’t I posted for like a month?  

Firstly, Frocktober totally burnt me out.  I haven’t taken any photos of myself in this whole time, no photos of my projects, no instagrams!  I’ve just been going along doing my normal work things and home things.  After sharing so much I just wanted a bit of privacy, you know?

Then Charles went away to America for 2 weeks to go to PASIC – a percussion convention.  During that time, I had one good night’s sleep.  I don’t know what came over me, it was stupid.  Also he’s my photographer, so even if I’d wanted to take photos I couldn’t!

Last Saturday we performed at Voices in the Forest, a huge opera pops concert at the National Arboretum.  Right now it’s more like “Voices in the Saplings” because of course the trees all burnt down 10 years ago and are still little.  It’s a fantastic place though – high above the rest of Canberra, you can see for miles and miles.  It’s spectacular.  The concert was good too!

Then on Sunday I woke up with this terrible pain in my stomach.  It was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed.  On Sunday night Charles took me to emergency at Calvary hospital and I stayed overnight for observation.  It’s pretty traumatic staying in Emergency because everyone’s so terribly sick.  People were much sicker than me.  And gosh!  Hospitals go through a lot of sick bags.  Everyone was so spewy (except me).  Charles left around 1am, I felt so bad for him, he had to get up at 6 for school!


The entire time I was in there I was hooked up to this heartbeat monitor, which beeps annoyingly when your heartrate either stops or goes too high.  Because I was of a slightly nervous disposition (i.e. totally flipping the heck out) my machine was beeping pretty much all the time, the nurse had to set it to a higher tolerance! My heartrate was almost always over 100, and in the day almost always over 110. For musicians, that’s a fairly moderate march tempo.
Mum and dad came to be with me first thing in the morning.  Everyone thought I had appendicitis, but some things didn’t fit.  I wasn’t nauseous or feverish and I didn’t have reboud pain (more pain when you release pressure than when you press on the spot), and I was hungry.  I just had pain.  They put several litres of water in me via a canular so I could have an ultrasound on a full bladder (they press so hard in the ultrasound I’m surprised I didn’t wet my pants, sorry TMI).  
So they were about to operate on Monday afternoon when the radiology report came back from my ultrasound, saying that I have an inflammation in my terminal ileum.  So your terminal ileum is close to your appendix, it’s the last part of your small intestine. And mine was all swollen and tender.  So they said “go home and come back if it gets worse”.  With some assisstance I walked out of there.  They don’t know why it was sore.
I took two days off teaching (which is a total pain in the butt when you’re self-employed) and now I’m mostly back to normal.  I’m pretty tired still from the ordeal, and my tummy hurts a little still.

I have been doing projects – I made another Miette cardigan (this time in black – which attracts every piece of dust in my vicinity), I’ve been working on another jumper, finished my two assessment garments for CIT… and haven’t blogged any of it.  Here are some dodgy phone photos of my projects!

Hope you’ve been having a good month!  Bring on Christmas!

CIT, life

What have I been DOING???

christinahopgood
It’s been a busy few weeks here at Christina HQ. As a result, I haven’t managed to upload a blog in over a week!  Bad Chrissy!

Here’s what I’ve been up to:


Firstly, I had a big assignment due yesterday for my Fibres and Fabrics course at CIT.  It was all of our work from the whole term.  I’m not used to doing actual homework anymore so it took forever.
Here’s one of the things I had to do: create a *new* fabric! It was really hard to think of something original (and even now I’m not sure that I did)! I kind of developed a technique that everyone already knows – braiding! I was braiding my hair and thought “Why don’t I do this with 30 strands instead of three?” and so I did.  The thing about this fabric is that it has no separate weft (the horizontal strands), only warp (the vertical strands). This is because the warp is drawn through the weft and left on the other side.

I tied all my strands to a coathanger to create the tension and braided it!  Like a huge friendship bracelet.

 Not sure how I’ll go on that part of the assignment.  It’s a pass/fail course, so I probably won’t get much feedback either.  I think I’ll pass.

Secondly, my parents have gone away to Europe for 5 weeks! They left on Sunday afternoon.  For weeks they’ve been planning and booking and researching their trip, and I’ve been helping in any way I could.  I gave them a bunch of things from when I went away (noise-cancelling headphones for plane, sleeping pills, Oyster cards for the Underground, etc.) and have been trying to calm their anxieties.  I took them to the bus on Sunday and they arrived in London late late late last night.  I think they’re going to have a ball!

Thirdly, I’ve been planning out my Autumn holidays.  We’re going to Melbourne on Friday until Monday! We’re going to be doing SUCH FUN things! Will keep you posted on our trip as it happens.

Other than that, it’s been work as usual.  We’ve been watching a lot of 30 Rock while doing our homework.  Why did I not adore this show while it was actually on???

CIT, life, sewing

My new courses at CIT!

christinahopgood
So this semester I’ve started two courses at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology) as part of a Certificate IV in Clothing Production. Since I’m only doing it part time, two evenings a week, I’ll be doing my Cert4 for about three years!  Full time students finish in one year.  But I’ve got to pay the bills (which I now have, living in an actual rented house)!

The two courses I’m doing this term are Fibres and Fabrics, and Clothing Production 1.  We started three weeks ago now.

In our fibres course, we learn about different types of fabrics, what they are made of, and their qualities.  We also learn about the production of fibres and fabrics.  Last week we all had to present some research on any natural fibre of our choice (I chose cashmere), and it was really interesting.  That session was great because I got to learn about bamboo, angora, abaca, jute, hemp, ramie, mohair, and more.  I’d never even heard of abaca or ramie! I also learnt that just because something is from a “natural” source (plant or animal), does not mean it’s environmentally friendly or cruelty-free. Bamboo is a good example – it’s very renewable because it grows so fast and in such quantities, but to make soft delicate bamboo fabric they use harsh chemicals which are very damaging to the environment. The same is true for cotton.  And there was a lot of talk about cruelty to Merino sheep, which I had no idea about.  We need to think about where our clothing comes from if we want to be environmentally responsible.  It doesn’t just appear in the shop!  Does anyone remember that song from Sesame Street, Bert’s Blanket?  That’s what this class was like.


Also last week, we did some felting with unspun wool! I thought I’d put up a tutorial on how to do that when I’ve done some at home.  I don’t want to be a felter, because I don’t really like the results, but I’ll do some experiments and see if I can do something good.

In Clothing Production 1, we have been learning how to operate the big industrial sewing machines. We’ve only had two classes and the first was entirely talking about OH&S, like don’t put pins in your mouth, tie your hair back, etc. There were so many horror stories about people swallowing pins and getting scalped by the machines and it was scary!  This week we actually did some sewing – on practice sheets, but at least we got to do it!  The industrial machines are quite different from your home machine.  They do one thing – go in a straight line.  Fast.  They are SO fast!  The teacher gave the analogy of going from driving a Barina to driving a tank. They’re pure guts!  The sewing we did was all in straight lines to get used to the speed and how to stop without massively overshooting.  I think we’re doing practice stuff for a few weeks before we get to start on real fabric.

Otherwise in my life, I’ve started reading Overdressed, because I saw some other sewers talking about it on their blogs, and I have a (bad? good?) feeling that it’s going to drastically change my shopping habits!

And that’s what’s going on!  It’s also why I’m so crazy busy!  But I got some yarn in the mail today from Bendigo Woollen Mills (it feels so nice and smooth, it’s going to be so nice to knit with) and I’m going to start a new cardigan – because that’s what I like to make and wear!