Category: life

dress, life, sewing

I have a (sewing) problem – Luck Be A Lady Dresses

christinahopgood
I admit that I have a problem. So far I have bought two versions of the beautiful Luck Be A Lady dress from Modcloth. I love them both to bits – they fit well, look great with or without tights and cardigans, are work appropriate, come with a cute belt, and have pockets. Pockets, you guys. I wear them ALL THE TIME. They are quite pricey, so I thought I was done.

The dress in ‘dots’, which I wear a lot to teach and work.  I love that it looks like an aboriginal dot painting.

The dress in ‘Blue Dots’, which is now totally sold out and gone.  This is more of a party dress, but super comfy and rad.

Then, recently, I went through my dresses to assess and downsize. I realised why a lot of my dresses don’t get much wear: they’re all made of patterned fabric, which makes it hard to pair with other patterned things. I need some solids! Enter the Luck Be A Lady Dresses in the original green colour and in Violet. Two beautiful jewel-toned dresses perfect for upcoming autumn and perfect for my wardrobe. I can just see myself bustling around in that gorgeous purple one with mustard tights and a ponytail…

Gorgeous, amirite?


And forest green!  Beautiful!

I decided to wait until I’d earned some money this year, since they didn’t look like they’d sell out and ANYHOW, Modcloth usually sends me an email before things on my wishlist sell out. I did a few hours work and earned $100, then sold a dress online, so I figured I could buy them.  I went online to do so!

VIOLET IS SOLD OUT.

Whaaaaat.  Modcloth, y u no email me? I don’t want to buy just one, because it’s expensive shipping and also, violet was the one I wanted MORE. Which brings me to!

CAN I SEW MY OWN?

I have looked on the McCall website (which has the patterns from McCall’s, Vogue, Butterick, and Kwik Sew) and couldn’t find anything like it with those lovely neck-pleats. The skirt part is easy enough without a pattern.  I’m going to keep looking. Imagine how great it would be to be able to make my own Luck be a lady dress in whatever colour I like! More like Christina be a lady. Dress.

So please fellow sewers, keep an eye out! I’m even considering unpicking one of my own to copy, and we don’t want that to happen!

Has this ever happened to you? What would you do in this situation?  Would you just buy the one in Autumn Plaid?

life, percussion, photo, ragtime

Sticks and Tones – mini photoshoot and new website!

christinahopgood
Today Charles and I wanted to do some photos for our ragtime duo Sticks and Tones.  My dad has been coming up with names for our percussion duo for years and one finally hit the mark!  Apparently there’s ANOTHER Sticks and Tones which is also a percussion family duo, but they’re not in this country so I’m not going to worry about it.


We have some concerts in February and March so we’ve got to get cracking on this stuff!






This is all in our new house.  I really like the Christmas lights as a background, it’s so indie and pretty!

We also have a website!  www.sticksandtones.net

Next thing is to make some demo CDs to sell at gigs.  Also business cards!  Or flyers!  So much to do!

life

New year! New life! New resolutions!

christinahopgood

Welp! It’s a new year! I think on the whole 2012 was pretty rad. Thinking back, a lot of stuff happened!

– I got a grant to go to Sweden and do a ragtime xylophone workshop with students
– I worked really hard teaching and working at ANU all year.
– Charles came home from Sweden for good!
– I bought and received my beautiful Deagan vintage restored xylophone!
– We finally moved in together!
– We got married in August
– We did lots of fun concerts!
– We went to the USA to go to our friend’s wedding
– I did Frocktober!
– We moved into our own place (well, rented place) in late December
– Charles was accepted into a PhD program at ANU
– I was accepted into the clothing production course at CIT
– I started up my blog again for real!

This year I hope to do more craft and sewing (I probably will anyway with my clothing production course), more teaching (I already have 11 new students lined up, bringing my total to like 33), and maybe less Library stuff. Last year the library could really only offer me irregular shifts which were a pain to get to. It’s not fun to go all the way in to ANU to do a 2 hour shift. It was fine when I was a student and I was usually there already, but… Now I need to reassess whether my time could be better spent. Last year I was really just “keeping my foot in the door”, but now I realise they can’t offer me any better position with libraries being downsized all the time. It’s a sad situation but I am thinking of disentangling myself. I am not a librarian.

My CIT course will be two evenings a week, Monday and Wednesday from 6 – 9pm. And I’ll probably need to teach 4 days a week. Gosh! It’s not possible to teach more than 10 students a day really, because it’s so exhausting! Standing up all day moving gear. You might be able to teach 16 piano students a day, but not percussionists.

I have exciting plans for our new home! I am going to create a nice sewing space with an inspiration pinboard and plenty of space for all my patterns and fabric. It’s going to be the BEST. I also can’t wait to get our instruments in (currently at my folks house) and rearrange our living room to make the best use of the space. The garden is begging me to put some new shrubs and flowers in, and the sunroom wants me to turn it into a rainforest. The biggest problem with space at our place is the walk-in robe has hardly any hanging space, but loads of shelves. Where do I hang my 37 dresses?

We’ve already got some gigs lined up for the Canberra centenary celebrations so yaaaay!

Resolutions!
– write in my diary every evening
– do my sit-ups, push-ups, and running using iPhone apps. So scared about starting the running one!
– organise teaching better. Create folder of pieces with 10 photocopies in each sleeve, stop taking around 200 books.
– create schedule for blogging and stick to it.

That’ll do! Happy new year you lot 🙂

holidays, life

Kangaroo Valley mini-getaway

christinahopgood
Last weekend the percussion department went on a little holiday!

This is Fitzroy Falls, right near Kangaroo Valley.

 My friend Will and I were the wimps of the group, we were too scared to look over the edge!

 The view from our house we rented.  We only stayed for two nights, but it was amazing!  We had BBQs and swam in the lake!

Charles and I made a “seat” in the lake out of two rocks and a log.  And I was wearing my Galaxy dress!

 Spectacular view while swimming!

 This is an amazing group photo – we all look like we just came from space.  And my galaxy dress looks rad with red tights!

Nothing?

So that’s where I was last weekend!  I hope we can go back next year!

life

Busy Miss Chrissy

christinahopgood

So I’ve not been as active on the blog in the past few days. This is for a couple of reasons!

1. Our landlord is coming home tomorrow (complicated situation), and we have been fixing things up around the house to get ready. Mainly, moving instruments back to our parents’ houses. As percussionists, we have a LOT of gear, which takes up a lot of space. While our landlord was away we kind of took over the lounge room with our instruments. Now we’ve brought it all back into our part of the house.

2. We have a huge concert this weekend! For those of you in Canberra, please please come along! You would not believe the amount of work Charles and I have put into this. As a consequence, it’ll be awesome.

Friday 30th November / Saturday 1st December, 7:30pm
ANU Arts Centre (in Union Court).
$25 adults / $15 concession.

We’re playing:
Drumming / Reich
Transmutations / Pateras
Celebration / France
Coming Together / Rzewski
Kalabash and Omphalo / Westlake
Musique de table / de Mey

And I’ll be playing some solo stuff!
Knockin’ on Wood / Norvo
Nola / Arndt

So I’m busy!