Mile High Chocolate Cake

Last week I decided to host a dinner party last week for two reasons: 1. I wanted to be reunited with my Korean bffl's after my trip to texas/michigan, and 2. I needed some motivation to get my apartment shiny clean. And the best part was~~ Sue offered to cook dinner as long as I made dessert! She made two delicious Korean dishes which I of course don't know the names of... but one was beef (yum) and the other was sweet potato (my new favorite korean dish). Sue and Yaegi love chocolate so I decided on this Mile-High Chocolate Cake. It was indeed very tall, and super delicious. My kitchen was really hot though, and I was a little bit too impatient to let the icing cool completely... hence a cake that looks a litttttle sloppy. Also, because it was so tall and still a little warm, I took the precaution of adding the chopstick support system. Sue added chocolate covered espresso beans and chunks of milk chocolate to disguise the chopsticks(but mostly I think just to add more chocolate...)

I didn't get a good group shot of everyone, but I am in love with this pic of Sue, Hye and I in matching denim!

cake recipe

22nd Birthday Treats + Baking French Macaroons

I spent my actual birthday in the workroom at school-- 17 hours of sewing, pattern making and all around fun. There was a slight break taken however, when Angy and Joanne surprised me with this amazing brownie tower cake topped off with a raspberry cheesecake and served with hazelnut coffee from our home away from home, Brooklyn Bagel.

(If you live in NYC and are in the Chelsea area, go there immediately. I eat like 2 meals a day there and have converted all my friends to serious addicts.) Their brownies are possibly the best i've ever had. (Sorry Mom.)

On Monday night after i'd finished all my classes for the semester, my korean bffls took me to Mad for Chicken in K-town for a lovely b-day celebration feast of fried chicken and amazing sushi. If you haven't had korean fried chicken-- get to it. Soo delicious. Served with carrots, celery and, my favorite, (korean?) radishes. The sauce is half soy garlic and half extra extra spicy. It's hot.

I have officially mastered eating drumsticks and wings entirely with chopsticks. I am not kidding.

Thennn, upon returning to Texas, my mom cooked up a legit feast for the fam + Katie, Amanda, Samantha, Marcus and Carrie. The meal consisted of my favorite salad, steak au poivre, pomme frites, and this amazinggg pumpkin tart.

I didn't get any pictures of the meal because I was too busy snarfing it down. I did however, pause for long enough to document this magazine cover worthy dessert. It was soo amazing. I promise to add the recipe asap.

For Christmas Day, I made some French Macaroons. I had been wanting to make these for a while, because they look so good. They were definitely a little tricky to make, mostly because they are very fragile, but they turned out perfectly and were really, really tasty. I didn't even put any flavoring in, so mine just had the traditional almond flavor and then the dark chocolate filling. So good. Now that I have a food processor of my own, I will be able to make these often.

My dad doing his best French face...

macaroon recipe

As you can see, a lovely and sweet 22nd birthday.

Body Contour Mini Collection: Cape, Corset, & Top

For my draping class this past semester we had to do a 3 piece mini collection for our term project, with one of the pieces being the corset I updated on a few weeks ago. I knew right away since I did a below-the-bust corset that I would want to include a top in the collection that could be worn under the corset. I found a beautiful stretch lace and used the scalloped edge at the top. I had planned to use the lace for the entire thing, but it was so delicate that it lost a lot of shape putting it on and off the dress form, so I used a mesh for the back. I had to hand sew the hem and top edge of the whole top because it is soo fragile, but with the addition of a velvet bow, I really love the way it turned out.

Sooo, finishing this corset was INSANE. After I finished all the pinning, it took me a little over 25 hours to hand sew all of the ribbons down, and then about 10 more hours to hand sew the lining in and the metal hoops down the back. My pattern making teacher told me she would have glued the whole together. Tempting...

Finished corset over blouse!

For the back I just laced a skinny velvet ribbon through these really nice almost brass looking hooks i found. I wanted the bottom to kind of open up because I loved the curved line, but also to show off the back of the mesh top.

While fabric shopping for a project for another class, I came across this remnant of faux lambs wool that was totally gorgeous, and the guy gave me a great deal on it. Since there was a limited amount, I immediately thought of doing a kind of cape that would make a glamorous topper to the ensemble. This was tough fabric to work with, and also involved hours of hand sewing, but with the addition of some really decadent rhinestone buttons the finished garment is really lovely I think. I gave this to my mom for Christmas and it looks great on her!

Modeled by Joanne!!

I think what I was most proud of with this project is that every single piece was constructed and sewn perfectly when I turned them in. A lot of times, when it gets down to the wire some of the finishing gets compromised, which is understandable, but a little sad. By total miracle though, by Monday, December 21st at 1:30pm I was able to put everything on the form for grading! My Christmas miracle!!

Knitting a Cardigan!

Wow! I have seriously been slacking in updating, but the last two weeks of school were insaneeee, followed by a four day trip to Texas for Christmas, and then a week in Harbor Springs for New Years. Now I'm back in New York and have been at my new internship for 2 days. It's a great experience, but it is definitely keeping me very busy. Anyways, all of this has kept me away from my updating duties, but the good thing is, that it has also given me time to complete tons of projects that I can now share! Awesome.

So, to get the ball rolling:

This past semester was focused primarily on knits. One of the classes I took was machine knitting, where we worked on these Brother hand knitting machines. They are pretty awesome tools, although they can be pretty tough to get the hang of.

Confession: Angy and I went totally yarn crazy this semester, and in anticipation of doing loadsss of projects we will never have time to do we each stuffed our lockers with skeins and skeins of yarn. No, seriously, I currently cannot open my locker safely...

Knitting the fabric for my "creative" scarf, which ended up being a cardigan.

After I finished knitting the fabric, I sewed together the pieces, made armholes and draped the collar, made a velvet bow closure, and embroidered a Comme des Garçons inspired heart on the lapel...

Final Product!

Modeled by my fave young Korean, JoAnne!

Detail Shot of the heart embroidery I did, and the velvet bow!

I didn't get a back shot, but it is solid black and really drapey, almost a big cowl.

I really, really love this piece, I wore it over a plain black dress with black tights for Christmas Eve, and it was the perfect amount of festive.

more coming... (!!!)