Air Fryers, Mardi Gras Dress, and Crafting

So Dean's parents gave him an Air Fryer for Christmas, and I was the first to try it out (shocking, I know). Have you seen these in Bed, Bath, and Beyond? You can chop up some sweet potatoes and spray them with Pam or coat them with olive oil, put them in the basket...


Cook for about 20 minutes, turning them halfway through...


And have delicious sweet potato fries! Not sure why they're that color, but be sure to cut them into uniform strips or they'll be more like sweet potato wedges that nobody really wants to eat.


And with chicken, be sure to only put a few pieces in there, because otherwise they won't cook uniformly and it'll take twice as long. This chicken was delicious though (buttermilk batter from the recipe book that came with the fryer), and was SO JUICY! Plus there's no grease!


So I highly recommend one, because it goes into the dishwasher, but mainly if you're cooking for 1 or 2, as cooking for 4 people overloads the basket. Dean made chicken wings in it and they were delicious, but had to be done in batches to cook evenly. Also great if you don't have an oven or don't want to fire up the oven!

On to a crafting project. I discovered an old sheet in my closet that used to be on my parents' bed in the 1970's. Not sure how (or why) I held onto it that long, but I pulled it out and decided it needed to be recycled into something useful. I was thinking a summer tank top or skirt, with some Alabama Chanin-style embellishment maybe. My mom thought it should be placemats with a coordinating backing fabric. I decided that she and my sister and I should each take a section and do something independently with it, then compare notes! So here are the 3 sections:


Lucas thinks the design is not modern enough for clothing and said the colors are not in right now (he's my fashion guru), but I told him that's called "vintage."


My mother said clothing will go out of style, but placemats won't. I'm not sure what Tracey will come up with. When we're finished, I'll post the final projects and we'll see how creative we all were. Fun!


And are you ready for the 2017 Dr. Fun Mardi Gras dress? It's the Simplicity 5093 slinky dress I first made back in 2011,


but this time I added the flounce from view E and criss-crossed the straps in back, so as not to be boring with the exact same dress in a different color. And I think now the "flounce" would be referred to as a "mermaid dress."


This is plain crisscross, but I thought maybe I should jazz it up with a loop or something instead?


Um, nerp. That didn't work out.


So I'm heading upstairs today to undo that and hopefully hem it up, plus I do need to tighten it up a little around the waist, since I thought I made a size 14 bodice based on my 2011 review, but apparently I really needed a 12. I'm bad about adjusting stuff after I've cut it out and not going back to adjust the pattern accordingly - do you do that? Usually by the time I get around to hemming, I'm sick of working on it, so I just stuff the pattern back in the envelope and forget about it. This time I made some notes on the pattern envelope, since this seems to be a keeper. And now for a beautiful panorama that Lucas took of our local swamp...er, wetlands.


And 2 last craft projects from my brother. This was the lamp he made from a nice gin bottle last Christmas, and it's taken me one full year to find the right lampshade for it! Apparently a 10" drum with a flat spider is unheard of, but Home Depot of all places ended up with an appropriate substitute!


And it's perfect on my self-assembled shelf. Jake approves!


I also forgot to mention his hand-turned wooden ornaments he brought for Christmas this year - gorgeous!


So have you done any neat craft projects in 2017? I'm very happy with this year so far, since I've gotten back to my running fairly regularly (we are off for the Azalea Trail Run and will be signing up!), my sewing mojo is hanging in there with this dress, my knitted split-neck sweater is ready to start sleeves, and we ate breakfast outside today because of the beautiful weather! Also, I'm re-reading The Shack because they're releasing the movie soon - anybody else read that? It's very inspirational and makes you happy to be alive. So I hope you're having a great year so far, too, and go have yourself an awesome Sunday!