Flower Bottom, Dragon Skin Sides

My resolve to knit plain for a while lasted a whole six rounds.

By then I was bored with stockinette, but I wanted a relatively solid, not very lacy pattern. Something solid that didn't contrast too much with the bottom petals.

That ended up being a modification of "Dragon Skin" from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury. I modified it so one repeat fit on each needle.

I've seen Dragon Skin knitted with yarnover increases, but the pattern calls for a raised-and-twisted increase (make one by picking up the bar between the stitches below, then knit into the back). I am using yarnovers, but knitting them into the back when I get to them, so hardly any hole forms at the increase, and the stitches still lean the right way at the right time.

Enough is happening on each needle to keep me awake, and then I can just cruise through the plain rows in between.

However, last night my hand woke me up half-numb and tingling, so I am going to slow down a bit knitting this. I like to knit on something while the inspiration is hot, but I don't want to kill my wrist and not be able to knit at all.

Marguerite commented, "My understanding is that they [peonies] live forever unless disturbed."

I can believe that!

Our first house was a tiny little place on the west side of Grand Rapids. It had belonged to a friend of my husband's grandmother who had planted the yard full of flowers. There were peonies, hyacinths, tulips, autumnal crocuses, as well as plum, pear, and peach trees. There were roses and poppies and spurge and things I couldn't identify with a library of plant books and a head full of recent horticulture classes.

When we moved, I had it written right into the sales contract that I reserved the rights to the plants and was taking most of them with me. The trees had to stay. But I dug up so many plants, that yard looked like a ground hog had been at it. (There are still flowers coming up there, despite all my digging.)

Anyway, these peonies came from there. I don't know when they were originally planted in Grand Rapids, but I've had the care of them for nearly twenty years. I can easily believe they would last 100 years. Or more.

Peony toughness story: When our geodesic dome was built, the contractor got to the connecting hallway before I thought he would, and I had not dug out the plants along the house yet. I came home and found some of my peony roots dug up and thrown out into the sun, where they'd lain for several hours and been walked on.

I replanted them in a new spot, and not only are they alive, they're trying to bloom again this year!