Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Okay, so now you’ve had a chance to finish up the cuff of the sock, and it should look
something like this.
The pattern tells you to do the knit 2, purl 2 rib for 2 inches, but really you can make
it any length that you like.
You just have to remember to make the other sock to match.
So, I want to show you first how to measure, to see how much cuff you have.
One thing you can do is you can count the number of stitches, by counting the “V”s
all the way up like this.
Or, you can take your ruler, and set it – I’m putting the last line, the 5 here,
right at the bottom of the needle, and measuring all the way down.
So, from 5 to 3, I have a solid 2 inches there.
But usually what I’ll do is I’ll count the stitches, to make sure that the 2 socks
match exactly.
Okay, the next thing that we’re going to get started on here, now that we have 2 inches
of cuff, is to make the heel flap.
And this is what the heel flap looks like when you’re finished with it.
You stop knitting with 2 needles, and just knit back and forth, like you would on a scarf,
on 1 needle.
Now, you can see, this doesn’t look like straight stockinette or straight knitting
like you would see here in the rib.
This stitch is called Eye of Partridge. Eye of Partridge? Yes, Eye of Partridge.
And every other stitch is slipped, and it makes it a denser fabric than regular stockinette
stitch.
And the reason for that is because the back of the heel is a high wear spot on socks.
And so a denser fabric will keep you from getting holes in your socks.
Now, I already told you these socks aren’t that great for stuffing into shoes, but this
is all really good practice.
Because these are things that you will see in every sock pattern that you ever knit.
So, that’s the heel flap. I’m going to show you how to get started on that right
now.
So, take your cuff, and rearrange the stitches, remember here is the beginning of our round
because that’s where the tail end of the yarn is.
Rearrange the stitches so that you have 20 stitches on the first needle, and 10 on the
other two.
And now I don’t want to mess up the space here, the beginning of my round.
So I’m going to transfer everything this way, and not mess this up.
So, I already know I have 16 stitches on this needle. So I’m going to transfer 4 –
2, 3, 4…that should give me 20.
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. Yes.
And I have 2, 4, 6, 8 on this needle.
So I’m going to transfer 2 from the other one on to here.
And when you’re slipping stitches, you always transfer and slip stitches as if to purl.
If you transfer as if to knit, you’re going to twist the stitches.
Now, I’m saying “always”, but there is an exception coming up here pretty soon.
I’m going to transfer these as if to purl so I don’t twist them.
Okay, so here is the beginning of my round.
20 stitches on needle 1, and 10 stitches on needles 2 and 3.
Now I’m just going to work back and forth on needle 1 for now.
If you look at your pattern, the heel flap is a 2 row pattern.
Let me show you how this looks.
Grab an empty needle.
I’m going to slip the first stitch as if to purl, knit the next stitch. And that’s
what the pattern says.
You repeat that pattern all the way across the whole first row.
Slip as if to purl, knit, slip as if to purl, knit, slip as if to purl, knit.
This is the secret to the denser fabric that I was telling you about.
The Eye of Partridge stitch.
I always think “Bird of Paradise”, it’s not Bird of Paradise, it’s Eye of Partridge.
Something to do with birds.
Okay, so that was row 1.
Now for row 2, we’re not knitting in the round anymore. We’re knitting back and forth.
So I’m going to flip it, as if I was knitting a scarf, just on this needle here.
The other two needles are just going to hang there and wait for me to come back to them.
Now, don’t get confused by the pattern here.
Row 1 was alternating slipping knitting, slipping knitting, slipping knitting all the way across
the row.
Row 2 you only slip the first stitch. I even put it in caps.
PURL ACROSS ALL REMAINING STITCHES.
You slip the first one, and the purl across the rest.
Let me show you.
Slip as if to purl, purl across all of the remaining stitches.
Okay?
No slipping after the first stitch.
That’s it. That is the 2 row repeat for the heel flap.
You’re going to alternate those two rows for 20 rows total, and then work row 1 one
more time.
And I always use one of these. This is a katcha row counter, this one is awesome because it
has a lock on it that keeps it from registering rows when you’re not – when it’s in
your knitting back and you’re not using it.
You want to keep track of your rows. It’s a little bit hard to count, at least for me
it is, when I switch from the ribbing to the Eye of Partridge stitch, there’s always
a question whether it’s one row less or one row more, so I always keep count with
one of these.
In fact, I’m so awesome that I always wear it around my neck on a ratty piece of yarn.
[laughs] And find myself in the grocery store later, still wearing it.
Wondering why people are looking at me funny.
So repeat those two rows for 20 rows total, work row 1 one more time, 21 rows, and when
you come back, we’ll work on turning the heel.