Heel Turns and Gussets

My Minions,

I promised you a riveting reflection on heel turns and gussets and here it is!

Heel Flap: When reading the instructions on this before class I thought to myself This doesn’t seems too complicated.  I can probably do this right now.  I didn’t though because another part of me thought I might be missing a critical something that would ruin my sock project and I should just wait until I got to class to move forward.  I shouldn’t have waited.  Creating a heel flap is really as simple and straight forward and the instructions read.  I don’t love that it looks different from the rest of the sock though.  Does this slipped stitch pattern serve a function?  Are there sock patterns with a regular stockinet heel flap?  Will the universe degrade into chaos if I don’t use a slipped stich pattern on my heel flap?  More research is required…

Heel Turn:  I couldn’t visualize what I was supposed to be doing while reading the instructions for the heel turn.  All of the turns in the middle of a row really threw me off.   How would all that craziness result in a heel turn?  And what was a heel turn for that matter?  And how do you “continue until there are no stitches left”?  The in-person demonstration by my instructor answered all of my questions.  The heel turn is where the leg of the sock and the foot of the sock meet at the curved back edge of your heel.  All that “purl 17, purl 2 together, purl 1 and turn” craziness is what is necessary to form than curved back edge.  And that “until there are no stitches left” nonsense, should read, “Until there are no stitches left on your left needle when you turn your work.”  Once demonstrated, the heel turn was a simple task that left me with the start of the sole of my sock.

Picking up the Gussets:  This was another step I was not able to visualize when reading the instructions.  Again, once I was shown what to do, it turned out to be quite simple to accomplish.  Plus, the sock is back in the round, so it gave me hope that it would one day stay on my foot!  This in and of itself seemed like a miracle, and I may have patted myself on the back for my mastery of knitting once this was accomplished.  Up until then, I wasn’t really quite sure how all the needles were going to come back together.

Gussets:  After being shown how to do a slip slip knit decrease, forming the gussets was a piece of cake. I love the angled line of stitching they formed.

In all, it was definitely worth paying for the class just to get though making a heel with confidence.  I may have gotten there on my own through repeated reading and blind following of the instructions, but I would have doubted myself and the process would have taken forever.  I completed the heel turn on the second sock and really only referenced the instructions for stitch and row counts.  Being confident allowed me to enjoy the process.

I left class with knitting the foot as homework.  We will complete the toe shaping and finish with the Kitchener stitch in the next class.  This will be immediately followed by a sock modeling session.

Until next time,

Jessica, Empress of the Universe