Flower Touque

Knitting season is here! Here is the flower touque pattern I promised to post (along with some dorky pictures of me sporting the touque).

Peace out knitters!

Flower Touque

This pattern is adapted from this cool wave touque I found on knitty.com.

Materials:
3.25mm circular needles
3.25mm double-point needles to finish top
Lopi Light wool - 1 ball for the main colour (brown) and less for the flowers.

With main colour, CO 88 sts. Place marker and join in a round, being careful not to twist.

Knit 5 rounds ribbing (K2, P2)
Knit 4 rounds
Work 20 rounds of Flower Chart (make 4 flowers, not 2).*

* Note: Carrying the yarn over was a bit of a nightmare. If you make all the flower petals the same colour and the centres the same colour then I think this would be a lot easier. I'd recommend the latter if you haven't knitted a pattern before.

Click on the image to enlarge.

When you're done the pattern, knit 8 rounds with main colour, or more if you want a deeper touque.

Shape Crown

Note: Switch to double-point needles when necessary.
Round 1: [K13, k2tog] twice, k27, k2tog, k13, k2tog, k14. 84 sts.
Round 2: [K12, k2tog] 6 times. 78 sts.
Round 3: [K11, k2tog] 6 times. 72 sts.
Round 4: [K10, k2tog] 6 times. 66 sts.
Round 5: [K9, k2tog] 6 times. 60 sts.
Round 6: [K8, k2tog] 6 times. 54 sts.
Round 7: [K7, k2tog] 6 times. 48 sts.
Round 8: [K6, k2tog] 6 times. 42 sts.
Round 9: [K5, k2tog] 6 times. 36 sts.
Round 10: [K4, k2tog] 6 times. 30 sts.
Round 11: [K3, k2tog] 6 times. 24 sts.
Round 12: [k2tog] 12 times. 12 sts.

Note: I altered the crown part of the pattern slightly and I can't remember if this pattern is adjusted or not.

Break yarn, draw through remaining stitches and pull tight.

Finishing
I recommend sewing in a thin fleece liner. It reduces forehead itch, covers up messy yarn carry-overs, prevents touque-stretch and helps block out the wind. You'll need a piece of fleece that is about 9cm wide by 40cm long.

Hope this makes sense - talk to me at knitting night if you needs some tips!

Happy Knitting!

The Kokanee are Back!

These guys are back in the spawning channel which is just a few minutes from our house.

Kessa and Nemiah checking out the salmon

Fall Colours

Copperstain, Glacier National Park

Cedars in the forest valley

Aaron and I on Mount Copperstain

Looking East from Mount Copperstain

moss campion

fringed grass of parnassus

funky alpine fungus

From L to R: Terminal Peak, Mount Sir Donald, Uto, Eagle, Avalanche, Mt. Macdonald

Forgotten boots

Bunchberries

and some mushrooms....

Balu Bear

I went up to Balu Pass for a hike with some friends a few weeks ago. We noticed a grizzly mom and her two cubs walking towards us on the trail while we were eating lunch. She was about 150 metres away and she wasn't deterred at all by the fact that there were four of us standing up, yelling and waving our hands and hiking poles at her. We moved on and they kept following. We met up with some other hikers and eventually ended up in a group of 12, which made everything much less intimidating.

Here we are all watching mom and her two cubs feeding. We were over a kilometre away at this point and well off the trail where the three bears were hanging out.

Bear poop (note the chapstick next to the poop for scale)

A cool beetle on the bear poop with little spiders or mites clinging on.

our garden

zucchini tendril

zucchini flower

lady beetle and broccoli

cilantro inflorescence

zucchini leaf

fuzzy spirals

summer sweetness

happily weeding the veggie patch

harvest time

chicory

brown-eyed susan

hops

I just love that our garden is full of these beautiful, magical spots that I can go and discover before breakfast on a sunny morning with my little camera.

The Badshot Range

Anne, Ned, James, Olliver and I spent four days in the Badshot Range to celebrate Anne's birthday and BC day. The area is located about 100 km south-east of Revelstoke, near Trout Lake.

Sunset from the Galena Bay ferry. We had a 3-ferry wait in both directions. August long-weekend is not the time to be in a hurry if you're taking this route. It was worth the wait for the hike and to be out of Revy for the Kokannee challenge.

Gas pump at Trout Lake

The Badshot range is an old mining area, which is why there was a road right up into the alpine. We found this collection of bore cores (made up technical term) on our first day out.

Subalpine daisy with friend

There were loads of colourful wildflowers out, which kept me and my macro lens happy. I've never seen so many shades of paintbrush before.

Silky phacelia (not lousewort!)

The area was surrounded by impressive rock faces - chossy rock, but impressive views.

We saw lots of cool and varied rocks all weekend, I guess that's what made it a good mining area.

James and Ollie on the Razor's Edge.

We found several dragonflies, some ants and other insects way up high on a glacier. I guess they got caught in a weird wind pattern.

A truffula tree.

Palmate coltsfoot

I assumed this was an elk print at first, but after seeing a couple of mountain caribou on our last day out I'm guessing this is caribou.

Views of the Bugaboos!

Preparing for attack

the lovely Anne

Fragile fern (I think - I can never remember alpine ferns)

James, his trusty stick and Lake Creek Lake

A mountain caribou track!!

We had great wildlife karma on this trip. James and I saw two wolves on the drive down, we had an owl circle over our heads the first night out and four mountain goats entertained us at our second campsite for about an hour. On our last morning Ned and I noticed a 'deer' on the ridge. I thought it looked a bit funny for a deer, but decided it definitely wasn't an elk.

It's both embarrassing and sad that I didn't properly identify it as a mountain caribou. Embarrassing because I teach kids about mountain caribou and sad because it just didn't cross my mind that it could be a caribou because there are so few of them out there. Anne got a much closer look and saw TWO caribou from about 15 metres away. She even heard their hooves clicking. A great birthday gift for Anne! We followed the tracks for a couple of hours that morning.

Some flower that I can't identify - an evening primrose? Let me know if you can i.d. this for me!

Nothing like a wet, coastal bushwack to make me feel at home.

Cold beers at the car. Four very happy hikers.