Balloon Flowers

Last week Sue shared pictures from a Whisper Challenge.  If you followed along on Facebook, Barbara Wise guessed  Sue's quilt to be the Balloon Flowers.  So today we are sharing some process photos.  This is the inspiration photo that Sue used in creating her quilt.

The technique used for the background is one developed by Terry Kramzar.  It has the look of square in a square blocks but without any seams.  The blocks are backed with fusible batting, quilted, then the  small squares are appliqued on.  If you look at her website, you'll see this technique as a background for many of her quilts.

She also has her own ruler to make placement of the square easy.

After completing the background, the stems and leaves for the flowers were added.

The flowers were cut from gradient fabric that came from Colorways by Vicki Welsh. After cutting out the shapes, details were added with Inktense pencils.

The stems and leaves were stitched first, then the flowers were placed and stitched.

Here's what the back looked like after all the stitching before the backing was added.

The final quilting is stitch in the ditch between all the squares.  Below is the finished quilt.

The process made this a fun quilt to make.  Check out Terry's website for examples of how she uses this technique in her work.