a rose in any other color

I was looking about at how people put together leaves and finally got to looking at flowers too. There don't seem to be as many flowers around as one might think. I put together one based on the two common techniques for making ruffles. One being to start with a lot more stitches than you might ever want to use and decrease madly, the other being to increase madly and cast off when it starts to seem too much.

I figured the petals should be lighter and the leaves heavier so the leaves get the decreases and the petals get the increases. Needles and yarn aren't terribly important, just something that makes sense together. Smaller yarn/needles makes smaller flowers. The flower above is in "asparagus" Red Heart Eco-Ways and "soft sunshine" Naturally Caron.com on a #9 (5.5 mm) circular needle and came out almost 5 inches wide.

Starting with a nice green for the leaves, cast on 165 stitches and connect into a round taking care not to twist.
Row 1 and all odd rows: knit (K).
Row 2: knit 3 together (K3tog) to the end. I insisted that the middle stitch should land on top so k1, held the next stitch away to pass the 3rd stitch over, then passed the 2nd stitch over. The easiest way, if you don't care which stitch is on top, is to slip two stitches, knit one, then pass those slipped stitches over the new stitch.
Row 4: K4, K3tog, (K8, K3tog)x4, K4.
Row 6: K3, K3tog, (K6, K3tog)x4, K3.
Row 8: K2, K3tog, (K4, K3tog)x4, K2.
Row 10: K1, K3tog, (K2, K3tog)x4, K1.
Row 12: (K3tog)x5.
Row 13: K5. Enthusiastic color changers may wish to do this row in yellow.

This leaves 5 green stitches in the middle. Change to a petal color to do the first, largest, layer of 20 petals. Knitting so that the wrong side faces the leaves (by actually purling or by switching directions), add the petals:
Row 1: K5.
Row 2, 4, 6, 8: Yarn over (YO), K1 to the end.
Row 3 and all odd rows: K to end. This will give 80 stitches when row 9 is finished.
Row 10: YO, K3, YO, K1 to end.
Row 12: YO, K5, YO, K1 to end.
Row 14: YO, K7, YO, K1 to end.
Row 15: K and cast off. I used a slightly softer cast off than the usual. To do this: cut the string about 3 times longer than the length to be cast off. In this case, this can be somewhat over 6 feet of yarn to work with. Thread a yarn needle and pull the yarn through two stitches back to front, the back through the first stitch, front to back. Pull off this first stitch and put it on the other needle as the last stitch. Continue by going forward through 2, back through 1 and dropping the 1.

For the next 10 petals, thread the yarn on a needle through the same route as the first row of the large petal. Since this is going last to first, proceed in a circle in the opposite direction as your knitting. Put the knitting needle through the 5 loops, this is row 1.
Row 2, 4, 6: YO, K1 to the end.
Row 3 and all odd rows: K to end. This will give 40 stitches when row 7 is finished.
Row 8: YO, K3, YO, K1 to end.
Row 10: YO, K5, YO, K1 to end.
Row 12: YO, K7, YO, K1 to end.
Row 13: K and cast off.

Draw the yarn through the center for 5 more loops and put them on the needles for the last 5 petals. This is row 1.
Row 2, 4: YO, K1 the end.
Row 3 and all odd rows: K to end. This will give 20 stitches when row 5 is finished.
Row 6: YO, K3, YO, K1 to end.
Row 8: YO, K5, YO, K1 to end.
Row 10: YO, K7, YO, K1 to end.
Row 11: K and cast off.

For a central button decoration, draw the yarn through the center for 5 more loops and put them on the needles. This is row 1.
Row 2: YO, K1 to the end.
Row 3,4: K.
Row 5: knit 2 together to the end.
Pass the yarn through each stitch and pull somewhat tight, then pass it through each in the other direction. This leaves the purl side showing. Weave in all the ends and finish.

Of course, the pieces of the pattern can be mixed and altered. This flower is in "dill", "ivory", and "peacock" Red Heart Eco-Ways Bamboo Wool (nice stuff) and a little of the soft sunshine above on #6 (4 mm) needles and comes to 3.5 inches. The leaves start with 135 stitches which are then reduced as in the first row and skipping rows 4,5. The first two petal segments are 2 rows shorter. The center was bound off when it hit 20 stitches instead of making the petals and the center was left with the bit of green showing.