Hey all, I’m back and we’re about to finish our toe-up sock KAL! All that is left now is to put in the afterthought heel that we left room for before. There’s two very popular methods of putting in the heel, using short rows or just decreasing as you would for a toe. We’re going to look at using the toe decrease, as it’s a little easier. Once you get a little practice using this method you can practice your short rows and try that on the next pair.
So you should have 2 socks (1 pair) that look like a pair of tube socks with a strand of yarn along the heel. What we’re going to do is pick up the stitches above and below that contrast yarn, remove the contrast yarn (creating a hole), and then work in our heel. If you think this sounds like a lot of work, remember than before this method was developed they used to CUT a heel in place and then pick up the stitches!
If you placed a lifeline in the rows above and below the contrast yarn, great! All you have to do is slip those stitches onto a needle. If you’re using DPN’s, use 2 separate needles. If you’re using circulars, you can use 1 or 2 depending on whether you’re using the magic loop technique, or knitting with 2 circulars.
After you’ve picked up the stitches successfully, you’ll want to carefully remove the contrast yarn. You’ll end up with a very large hole in your sock, but don’t worry, that’s where the heel will go. At this point I like to knit a few rounds before i start my decreasing. when you get to the ends of the stitches on each needle, you’ll want to increase a couple of stitches so as t not have a large hole. Once you’ve knit a few rounds, you’ll want to start decreasing at the beginning and halfway point of your heel, just as if you’re doing toe decreases for a cuff down sock. Remember to have a stitch or two that remain the same and decrease on either side of this. This means you’ll have 4 decreases per round. Also, skip a round in between your decreases.
The last thing is to pay attention to the slant of your decreases. A K2tog decrease will slant to the right, and a sl1, K1, psso decrease will slant to the left. Just a tip here, you may want to K2tog TBL for the sl1,K1, psso decrease, but I recommend that you don’t as it places a twist in your knitting. This isn’t a huge issue (although it’s one you should be aware of), but since it’s in the heel of the sock it may cause a bit of discomfort later on.
Continue in this manner until your heel is at the depth that you want it. If you’re decreasing too much and not getting enough depth, increase the number of rows that you nit before you decrease from 1 to 2. Once your heel is of the desired depth, carefully graft (Kitchener stitch) the remaining stitches together. Here’s a video of this entire process by the KnitGirlls. I used this video because it shows the process from the very beginning – so if you need a refresher from the start, this is a good one. If you don’t, you can go to the middle where she gets int picking up the stitches.
Guess what? You’ve just finished your socks! Try them on or give them to whoever you made them for. I’d love it if you sent me some pictures of how yours came out. I’ll show you mine in the next post!
Hugzzz 😎