k2 vs k2tog

um, didn't realize there was a difference between them. sigh. off to restart my cardi knitting project again for the 5th time!

or are we at 6 x's already?

why is your german chocolate cake so pale?

is the question i keep getting asked since the posting an hour ago. i didn't use buttermilk because giant stopped selling buttermilk (why would they ever do that?!?!??!?!), but thankfully "joy of cooking" recommended sour cream as an appropriate alternative. and appropriate it sure was, as the cake came out super moist!

so to answer the question, it was the sour cream that made it so pale

german chocolate cake!

last weekend, while working on a new embellished tshirt, i got frustrated and took a nap instead. what did i dream of? german chocolate cake! so this past weekend, i put my dream to work after the soccer game (that we won!!).

to this day, i still have no egg beater, so when the recipe calls for beating the egg whites on high, i just beat a little faster. when it asks for beating on low speed, i still beat a little faster because let's face it: my high speed beating is not as fast as an egg beater's high speed beating. sigh. instead of doing 3 tiers, i baked the cake in a new bundt pan that i wanted to test.

then off i went with 3/4 of the bundt cake to the usual sunday potluck dinner. only problem: my camera died. no worries, i thought. i'll just take a pic of the 6 leftover cupcakes with the coconut and nut icing on top. monday came along and of course i had to bring 3 cupcakes to lan, liane, and my boss. tuesday came along and of course i had to bring 2 cupcakes to my co-coaches at field hockey. tuesday night rolled along and andrew and i had finished that 3/4 piece of the bundt cake. so late last night, before diving into the last and final cupcake, i snapped a picture. i'll admit, i did a pretty terrible job frosting it. i was more concerned with eating it than its appearance. see, i'm not shallow! this icing is 100% deliciousness

tissue posy tee and debut of the duckie shirt

the recent jcrew catalog had amazing embellished tees. this particular one looked so simple and so amazing and jcrew has the nerve to charge $39.50!!! we weren't afraid though, because it looked incredibly easy to make. so, clara and i had our challenge ahead of us. off we went to h&m, where clara scored a very similar white v-neck tee for $5.95! i was less lucky. nothing fit. but no worries because i have a closet full of clothes where i found a simple black tee (that was super cropped because of poor laundering, but we could work around that...). we bunched really broad grosgrain ribbon as the petals of the flowers and i used a big jewel button as the center while clara went more artsy and exactly replicated the jcrew one by sewing down squares of the narrower satin ribbon. then we made stems with the satin ribbon, making sure to bunch the ribbon every few steps so that it would have more texture. i made one of my stems go diagonally across the shirt because i preferred the pattern to take over more of the shirt than just one side. and then we twisted small strips of the satin ribbon to make the leaf and voila! so so so easy! how did i deal with the fact that my shirt was super short due to frequent use of the dryer? i paired the shirt with a high waist pencil skirt and my fantastic suede fuschia belt from portland! i actually wore this as an outfit today. hehe.here's the one clara made. hers looks just like the jcrew one! sorry for the blurriness. i had to use my blackberry's camera because i didn't have my regular one on hand.
and all day yesterday andrew sported the duckie shirt for the 2nd time! (1st time was for my bday dinner.) i got him the hat ages ago from one of my fav stores in dc: propper topper!

zebra t-shirt!!

i absolutely love the jcrew crewcuts girl's zebra graphic tee. however, the zebra could be a little smaller and i didn't dig the $22.50 price tag. so naturally, i made one myself. i found some freezer paper stenciling tutorials online, traced a zebra onto the paper side of some freezer paper, cut it out on my new self-healing (!!!!) cutting mat, and ironed the negative onto an old tshirt. with some fantastic metallic purple paint, i painted in the negative of the stencil, waited all of 2 hrs (i was supposed to wait 24, but i got impatient), and then peeled off the freezer paper. amazing, no? the right eye is a little freaky as it has no pupil. originally i had a small dot, but i think it was too small and just in the wrong spot. since i can't change this, i just filled it in instead. i still have to let the paint sit for the rest of the 24 hrs and heat set the paint with a pressing cloth and iron, but in the meanwhile i figured i'd show off the goods!

my pimp coaching jersey

so i'm coaching field hockey this season. it's so much fun, but the coaching jersey i got was a men's small! it almost went to my knees and the sleeves went half way to my wrists. there is only one word to describe my emotional state: drowning.

i took matters into my own hands and shortened the shoulders, the sleeves, and the torso. the shirt i got didn't say field hockey on it (we ran out), so i beaded that on in white 10° czech glass seed beads. under the red is the name of the school, which already came embroidered on the shirt. i sneakily scratched it out so you won't know where i work! (actually you all pretty much know where that is.)the back was rather plain. so, i traced crossed field hockey sticks on white jersey cloth (ok i borrowed one of andrew's white undershirts) and stitched gold 10° czech glass seed beads down the middle. and ditto for the ball. even if the girls do sprint slower than anyone i've ever seen, we must win since their coach has the most piiiiiiiimp jersey! ok off to bed!

happy birthday to mommy and me!

last monday was my bday and last friday was mommy's bday. andrew took me out to eat the sunday before and monday evening. yes, i'm so special that we have to celebrate me twice! we celebrated mommy's bday on saturday in pittsburgh with the jimster. i tried my bestest to find her the perfect bday gift but failed miserably (i hate gift-giving unless i can find the perfect gift, sigh). however, mommy is a pie-lover and since peaches are in season, i decided to make her a fresh peach pie (non-custard type, since she dislikes custardy things). it was rather tasty, despite the slightly singed crust.

here's jimster and mom at her bday lunch!! it's a rather special sighting of the jimster, since he's rather elusive...

and here i am in my anthropologie bday necklace from andrew!!! yay andrew!!! (i'm wearing my glasses, which is not so cute, so i didn't want to ruin the photo of the necklace with my face!)

happy bday to mommy and me, happy bday to mommy and me, happy bday to mommy and meeeeeeee, happy bday to mommy and me!