happy birthday kate

happy birthday kate
Originally uploaded by wck

My niece is turning 6, so here's her birthday cake. It's the same cake I made for my birthday (made with yogurt so it's sooo easy!) with strawberry jam between the layers.

She loves to look in my falling-apart Baking at Home cookbook by the Culinary Institute of America. It has a cake frosted with buttercream with perfect little puffs of frosting around the edges. A few months ago she requested that exact cake for her birthday. I'm not much of a cake decorator, so I told her I'd try. Well, 4 hours later, here we go!

I've also been busy taking apart an old silk dress that my mom had from the 1980s. I want use the top (sans poufy 80s sleeves) as a dress bodice, although I haven't quite figured out what to do for the skirt. It's sitting on my dressform while I think about it some more.



I also went to the Isabel Toledo exhibit at the FIT Museum this morning- it was sooo wonderful! I brought my notebook and pencils and sketched a bunch of details. One thing that I really loved was a seam she used on a few jersey dresses- the pieces didn't quite meet at the seam, and she ran a very fine mesh through the space between the pieces that were being joined. (Is that called a strap seam? I feel like it is.) I couldn't believe how smooth and perfect the pieces all were even with that seam curving all over. Wow.

If you get a chance to go see the exhibit, it's well worth the visit. (And it's free, which is awesome.) I got there about 10:45 AM, and was sitting in the lobby when... Bill Cunningham walked by! Oh my goodness. I almost wanted to run up and tell him that he was one of my favorite photographers EVER, but he was talking to someone. I love him to pieces, can't believe I've actually seen him in person now! He had on the blue smock he always wears to work, and was carrying his camera... I wonder if he got special permission to photograph the exhibit?