More Cooking than Sewing

Being mid-move is throwing me for a loop. It seems like nothing is ever where I need it to be (especially my sewing stuff!), so I have not been doing much sewing. There has been no progress made on the kaleidoscope quilt or the mug rug for Mug Rug Revival. I did finish one more 3" half hexagon pinwheel, bringing the grand total up to 23!


A while back I used this pattern and followed the sizing to make this potholder for my mom.


She absolutely loves it. Well, my whole family is fanatical about the "What Does the Fox Say" video. My mom and I even have matching mother/daughter shirts. Oh, you haven't seen the video? Here it is:

Anyways, I made her the potholder and she loved it... too much. She refuses to use it because it is too cute. She even took it to her church group's bake sale to show off but didn't use it! This is frustrating because I make things to be used! So I am making her a slightly bigger version as a wall hanging so she can use the stinking potholder. I printed the pattern to fit on legal instead of letter paper, so it is coming to about 10.5" across (25% increase).


I decided to put some wonky stars around the 4 corners to increase the size just a bit more. These stars finished at 3" across, so they were teeny tiny.


Over the weekend I led the annual Underwater Pumpkin Carving event for the dive shop I work at on the side. We had a great turnout but horrible conditions. The water looked like chocolate milk, there was a ripping current and it was so choppy that holding on to your pumpkin was tough. Here I am all suited up to go in (GoPro and all!).

Here is a picture of everyone who came out and all of the pumpkins. Only 4 people were able to successfully carve their pumpkins.

Here is my boyfriend with his amazing first place winning pumpkin! He won three nights at a resort in Cozumel (so I'm a winner too!)!

Anyways, speaking of my boyfriend and I, we are adapting really well to the giant [to us] kitchen at the new house! We did a crazy amount of cooking this weekend. First up, we have some super tasty Chorizo and Sweet Potato chili. It came out ridiculously tasty. The recipe can be found here. We added an extra can of black beans, and would both have liked maybe a little more seasoning, but aren't sure what. Don't get me wrong though, it was super tasty! We had enough leftover for 3 quart sized bags to be frozen. Yay quick meals later!
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We also made some baked corn dogs and loosely followed this recipe. The main changes we made were: regular flour (because that's what we had), half cayenne half paprika (I hate heat and it was totally okay), and all beef hot dogs. I still had some black sesame seeds from Japan, so we absolutely used those. Mmm, these came out so delicious. My favorite part of any corn dog is the breading and I rolled the breading out pretty thick on these puppies. Om nom nom.


We even made some salmon patties. The recipe is something he and I Frankensteined out of another recipe. I could be convinced to share it if there is interest. They are so ridiculously tasty. ...Now I'm just showing off ;)