Beautiful Irises produce dramatic and brilliant blooms, with a characteristic exotic fan-shape consisting of one or more symmetrical six-lobed flowers. They come in a wide variety of colours but the best-known ones are blue, purple and yellow.
1. Pipe a guide mark to help with the positioning of the two side petals and the middle petal.
2. Using the Wilton 104 Nozzle and blue buttercream, pipe a rounded two-stroke petal (see Basic Petal Strokes) for the middle petal.
3. Pipe elongated two-stroke petals on either side of the middle petal.
4. Pipe two or three wavy upright petals (see Basic Petal Strokes), about 2–2.5cm (3⁄4–1in) long, that touch the base of the middle petal. Then pipe a short upright petal at the base of the other two petals. They can slightly overlap.
5. Use yellow buttercream in a piping bag with a small hole at the tip to pipe the yellow patch in the middle of each of the big two-stroke petals.
6. Using dark blue buttercream in a bag with a small hole at the tip, pipe small dots on the sides of the outer upright petals to complete the flower.