Bulgarian Blooms–Finished Pair

Here is my version of Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ Bulgarian Blooms, all blocked and ready to wear.

The pattern is done in intarsia, which involves turning the work and purling every other row of the pattern area. It’s a bit fussy, but it would go faster if I mastered knitting-back-backwards. The worst part is the center where there are multiple flowers and leaves in a row. Still, I found the technique interesting and, like much colorwork, I wanted to keep going to see the pattern develop. The pattern tends to rise above the background in a bit of relief, which I attribute to my poor tension in the intarsia sections. I think it’s supposed to be flat. But I don’t think it looks bad.
In addition to using different yarn (I used Cascade Heritage Sock yarn) and different colors, I used duplicate stitch for the centers of the small gold flowers instead of working those four stitches in intarsia.