Posey by Lisa Kay

Posey

Knitting
March 2008
Fingering (14 wpi) ?
34 stitches and 38 rows = 4 inches
in stockinette stitch, see notes
US 1½ - 2.5 mm
700 yards (640 m)
women's average
English
This pattern is available for free.

Pattern uses two skeins each of two colors KPPPM.

Additional Gauge information: One 17 st mitered square = 1”

From Knitty: My latest knitting passion has been socks using hand-painted yarns. I have also been meaning to try out a modular project, and Posey was the outcome of the marriage of the two ideas. My biggest concern with the project was how to work squares into the foot, since squares cannot be knit in the round. At least, I could not figure out how to knit squares in the round! After reading Jane Sowerby’s, Victorian Lace Today, her “single join” technique for working a lace border onto a previously completed center panel stuck in my head as a way to address the problem.

The two-color mitered square, called “half square triangles” in the quilting world, is adapted from Maie Landra’s Knits From a Painter’s Palette, with additional instructions shown here for working the squares with two colors. The heel flap used is the “Heel Stitch with German Chain Selvage,” from Charlene Schurch’s More Sensational Knitted Socks.

A note on choosing colors: The first prototypes of the Posey squares used a purple hand-paint and a pink hand-paint. However, the two colorways were too closely related, the purple having some pink and the pink having some purple. The skeins seemed “made for each other,” but the overlap in color made them disappear into each other when knitted together. When choosing colors, avoid picking hand-paints that have any colors in common. Contrasting colors work best.