Kōwhai square pattern

A couple of years ago, I was asked to design a square (or squares) for the Friends Around the World CAL celebrating the 3rd Anniversary of the CAL - Crochet Along Facebook group (FATW3). I designed a couple of squares but ultimately decided to only submit one of those for the CAL (my Ponga tree square). The other square design was put aside until this year when I pulled it out again and made some improvements to the pattern. "Kōwhai" is the Maori word for "yellow" and it is also the name of a native tree. 

The Kōwhai tree flowers in spring with bright yellow flowers that attract the tui (a native bird). I wanted this square to be filled with as many flowers as possible.

The square I designed is very textured with few holes. You can choose to stop after round 10 to make a 5" square. I designed another square (the pattern will be released later on) that also works as a 5" or 10" square and both are designed so that the stitch counts at the end of the 5" square match as do the stitch counts at the end of the 10" square so that you can mix and match to join the squares together. I used the squares from my original design to create a kowhai bag using two large square for the long sides and creating 4 squares for the shorter sides with a plain green base. 

You can find the pattern available for purchase here.

If you would like to try out some of the techniques used to make the square in a simplified way, you can try out my Kōwhai flower pattern for free here