doves and fabric flowers

Doves:
Any of my readers out there have hunters for husbands? I don't have a deer hunter husband. I guess I am just married to a true blue boy. He loves to shoot his gun or caste his reel and bring home dinner. I try to be as supportive as possible because I am proud that I am married to someone who doesn't kill for sport; he hunts and fishes to eat. But I am not a huge meat eater :/ So,  Brent went dove hunting this past weekend. I wont lie, I was a little weirded out about eating dove; I mean, I watch them in my back yard everyday. He was SO excited though so I jumped on board. We had about 45 individual dove breast. They are only about 2 or 3 inches big. We took each breast and spread cream cheese on it, put a slice of jalapeno in it and then wrapped it with bacon. I stuck a toothpick in it and we threw them on the grill. Between the homemade mashed potatoes, baked beans and fresh dove bites, dinner was truly heavenly. I do have to admit that the best part were the many many (many) s'mores I ate, toasted over the campfire, for desert. So, lesson learned. Try new things. Don't be grossed out by eating things that use to have feathers. Eat s'mores every night. :) If you have a hunter husband you should try this recipe- I hear it works great for deer too!

Fabric flowers:
Well if you have been following me you read my pillows galore post. If you didn't you should follow that link because it will give you a background story to this post.
Pretty much I decided to start decorating one of the MANY throw pillows I have made out of the same fabric by using this fabric flower tutorial. Isn't is 'sew' stinking cute!? After reading through Lucy's instructions I decided that this is definitely a project I could handle. I thought her directions were really clear and easy to follow. I am just going to give a quick overview of my process and some changes/ mistakes I made.

1. I cut out my two strips of fabric, 4 and 5 inches,and I ironed down the 1/4 inch seam.

2. I folded each strip in half and ironed them.

3. I made the knot on the end of the thinner piece and i started wrapping and twisting the material. I used a good number of push pins as I went because I am a klutz and I kept dropping the flowers and loosing my work. I then took the thicker piece and started folding to make the bigger "petals" for the flower, be careful to watch from the front as you fold to make sure you don't end up with a lopsided flower. I speak from experience; I had to start over several times. Here is my finished product.

My flower looks different from Lucy's. I can guess two reasons for that. She used a heavier fabric and we folded/ wrapped/ twisted our material differently. I like both her and my flower so it's a win, win!

4. I added my flower to the pillow. This is where my mistake comes in. I didn't take into account the size of my flower compared to the size of my pillow. My pillow is 18x18. The flower is about 5x5. Let me just let the picture speak for itself :)

That flower looks a little lonely huh?! So, being the crafty genius I am- HA!, I decided to make some smaller flowers to accent the bigger flower. I stuck to the designer's rule of thumb- always work in threes- and made two smaller flowers. All I did to make the small flowers was to omit the 5 inch piece. I wrapped the 4 inch piece and sewed it up. Here is what I got.

What do you think? This is the finished seat.

I was thinking that one of those long round pillows would look cute made in the brown fabric and put in front of the big pillow.

I may be WAY behind of my schedule but so far I am pleased with my throw pillow creations! I hope you enjoyed this and are now dying to make some cute fabric flowers! :) Be sure to share with me what you put your flowers on! I can't wait to hear!!
~Happy flower making