Did you miss me? I kind of missed myself on #needleworkmonday last week and I still have not see half of all the fabulous tiny outfit entries of our contest. But as so often I had a lot of headaches which held me back (do you hear this, stupid migraines, go away!) and when the head was ok, I was completely occupied with making Christmas gifts… and I cannot even write about this as my loved ones read my blog.
But besides sewing for Christmas I also explored a new very interesting knitting technique: a sock heel construction.
During the less worse headache days I wanted to knit a bit but as you can imagine my concentration is very low in these moments. One reason why I mostly knit easy stockinette cardigans which do not need a lot of counting or focus. But this time my eyes fell on a sock I started this autumn and which I then forgot about because I (again) could not remember how the heel is done 😱🤣. Despite the headaches I suddenly developed a strange ambition to tackle this heel and to finish the sock. (Relax dear readers I am not a clone or an alien in the body of neumansalva-who-normally-needs-over-a-year-to-finish-socks, no its still me and so you can only admire the heel but not the finished sock.)
The pattern I used is a new one I found on ravelry and it was advertised to me as adventurous but easy: sounded good to me. Even better the pattern is free, its called Elaine's Happy Heel and it really made me happy.
Till now my meagre sock experience includes exactly one heel technique, a heel with flap and gusset done with short rows. I know for prolific sock knitters this is laughable easy, but for me it means pulling out books or search the internet how it’s done and then knit very concentrate while writing down every tine step, so that I hopefully can replicate this heel on the second sock. "Not this time" I thought while reading through this new heel knitting technique, this time it will be easy. I imagine you, dear readers holding your breath while you expect some gruesome mistake to happen while I use this „easy“ technique for the first time. But no, it really is very easy, and I ended with a nice heel on my striped socks.
So, here is how its done. You knit the sock top down, then separate half of the stitches for the heel, the other half simply rest on the needles and wait till you have finished the heel. Now you knit the heel stitches in rows and decrease one stitch every row (and while decreasing you also slip a stitch – this is important for later). This one-stitch decrease leads to you knitting a trapezoid, the first half if the heel. Easy. Honestly.
The second half of the heel is also a trapezoid, only the other way round. In my case I started the heel with 30 stitches and the last row after decreasing has 10 stitches. Now I started to increase to again reach the stitch count of 30. And this is the clever part of the technique. The increases are done at the beginning of every row but through the slipped stitches of the first half of the heel. I picked up the stitches with a thin crochet hook and transferred them on the knitting needle. It reads strange but is super easily done. Every row of the second half of the heel relates to the corresponding row of the first heel part. I guess the images show this better than I can explain it.
After you finish the heel you have the exact same stitch count as before and you simply continue to knit in the round. Hurrah 🎉
The explanation gives the tip to mark the slipped stitches of the first heel part, so that you do not miss one, but in my typical manner I thought: pah, I am so skilled I do not need this. And other than in many of my failed sewing projects, it worked out. I guess you also could omit this step and make the technique even faster.
I am so curious if you will try this out or if you already knew this technique and only I the forever-sock-noob was in awe about the cleverness of this technique?
Thank you @crosheille for initiating and @marblely for hosting the #needleworkmonday and the community builder team @lauramica, @romeskie and @kattycrochet I am so glad to be part of. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric, and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community.
Ohhh, if you don't have a hive account and want to comment then visit my Wordpressblog Bliss and Blisters and write me there.
Read more about my art und upcoming exhibitions on neumannsalva or buy some of my digital artworks on NFT showroom.
Last but not least: if my post coaxed a smile on your face you could support me with cocain coffee on Ko-fi
This looks like a super easy technique for heels - easy to do and easy to remember! It is also easy to do in reverse, so if you wish to do toe up rather than cuff down. Excellent! 😍
Toe up is still unknown territory for me :-DDD But good to have a simple technique which I can memorise and which will work on several designs. I hope the fit will be ok too.
Hi my sock knitting buddy! I was smiling that we post about socks just by 4 minutes difference 😁
The heel looks nice. I must try your method once. I remember someone suggested me to try a method, which is called "tomato" something. I think it was "sweet tomato heel". I like the name and it's on my TODO list too.
Happy sock knitting 🧦💕
Yes yes, I also read about the tomato heel and thought it a very cute name. But the book which mentioned this technique said its good for wide heels (I hope I remember correctly) and I have very thin heels, so I never tried. But perhaps its completely irrelevant as knitted fabric is so flexible.
Will hop to your blog now and explore your socks <3
I am so comfortable with my top-down, heel flap socks I don't know if I will try this or not. As a geometry teacher, though, I certainly admire the ingenuity of this method! !BEER
If I could have remembered the "normal" heel with flap and gusset, I also would have stayed with this method as I like the fit :-DDD But so my headaches forced me to learn something new :-)
View or trade
BEER.Hey @neumannsalva, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @fiberfrau for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.Oh my dear! I'm so sorry that you suffered from migraines again 😭 I recently read that migraine is associated with nutrition and that something needs to be changed in your menu. there they wrote about gluten, lactose. the sock turns out wonderful! you are a big pro !!!!
Sadly I have them every month but not always this heavy (I am super sorry I forgot to answer your last comment on my post two weeks ago because of this). And with the nutrition, it seems for migraine which is not bound to the period changing food does help, but with hormonal migraines this isn't really helpful 😭
And thank you for the compliment, hopefully I fill finish these socks faster than the last pair which needed over a year :-DDDD
hormonal migraine! Oh my dear !!! I'm very sorry!!!! 😭
Prayer sent to you, too. May your migraine be gone and heal totally. I love your socks. Even though I do not know how to knit. The color is nice.
Me neither, but watching others knit is fun.
Thank you for you lovely support <3
THe color of the yarn is called "vintage sock" I got it as a bargain this autumn and thought it will be nice with all the flecks and colors.
Did you ever tried to crochet socks? I made them once and the pattern was ok, but not as stretchy as knitted socks. I read that there are crochet patterns which crochet the whole sock not in the round but flat and with a kind of ribbing pattern (I guess single crochet in the back loop)
I have never tried making crochet socks, mostly because I don't need them ( it doesn't get extremely cold over here). I really love this sock you made, I love the colors more actually😂
I hope your migraines go away soon enough so you can focus on creating more things.
Yeah :-DDD warm climate isn't the best for sock knitting. If you ever get in the mood to crochet something similar, perhaps a kind of house slippers could be more useful than thick wooly socks. But I am not sure if you ever need house slippers? Hmmm I am curious.,.. here the floor in a house can be pretty cold even in summer.
And I also liked the colours, the yarn was a bargain yarn because it has some knots in it. The colors are called "vintage" ... but I have no idea why 🤣
I think I will go with the crochet slipper just for the fun of it and I think it will be a really cool thing to have. Also, my floor gets really cold sometimes
hahahhahah, I don't see why either or could it be because of the range of colours
Such a coincidence @jicrochet made some crochet slippers :-D
https://peakd.com/@jicrochet/posts
Hi @neumannsalva
Yes indeed I missed you last week, I hope those migraines go away for good.
I am very excited to read your post, one of my challenges next year, is to knit socks with five needles, so this content I will already save for when I get into this world.
So I need to know what are the best needles...what is the best yarn? I need to know everything... Can you help me?
How nice you managed to advance without problems when knitting the heel, when I knit socks I will use your method.
Best regards.
Ohhh so excited that you want to learn to knit socks(and please excuse me, I forgot to answer your last comment on my post two weeks ago, but I was really distracted by the migraines)
But back to the sock knitting. I so love to talk about tools :-D But beware all my advise is totally subjective, there are so many methods to knit socks in the round. I think @akipponn and @shanibeer and @fiberfrau are very good sock knitters (better than me) and can help you too.
My preferred needles are Addi colibri in 15 cm length, they are made from metal and euch needle has one blunt and one pointy end, so that you can use them well for yarn which splits easily (blunt end) or for lace patterns (pointy end). And the needles come in nice colors :-D
https://www.lovecrafts.com/en-gb/p/addi-colibri-double-pointed-needles-15cm-6-set-of-5
But honstly you can use much cheaper wooden needles exactly the same (I only have two different needles sizes from Addi, the rest of my DPN‘s are wooden ones for 1€ per set).
But many knitters love to use circular needles for sock knitting, either with a long cable which is somehow pulled into a loop or with special super tiny circular needles especially for sock knitting. For me the long cable makes me nervous and the super tiny cable let my hands cramp :-DDD But thats me… as you can see on @akipponn latest post, she uses a circular needle with a long cable and her socks are beautiful.
And for the yarn… I think most works well. The classic „sock yarn“ in Germany is made from 75 % wool and 25 % nylon to make it durable, but you can also use acrylic or perhaps other blends. I am not sure if cotton would work (i guess not so well, not stretchy enough and not warm enough).
If only I know how to knit, maybe I can easily follow this one and able to make some for my children. But thanks for sharing anyway, hoping that migraine well leave you so you can share a lot here just like the old times. God bless you @neumannsalva.🥰
If you ever want to try out knitting, you know where to ask :-D But I am sure you could either crochet socks or even sew them (a friend of mine tried this out). It was a very interesting construction with a seam at the sole of the feet.
And thank you for your well wishes, I have hormonal migraines, so they come again... every month. But I hope less long than the last time 🤢
Wake lovely thanks @neumannsalva you're always so perfect and original at what you do
Thank you so much for commenting. And lets hope the next sock will work out nicely too :-)
Yea I believe it will looking at how well you can don this I know you’ll put your all into it and am sure you’ll definitely come out positive
Congratulations @neumannsalva ! Your post has been placed in the spotlight for this week's NeedleWorkMonday Community Featured Posts #163!
Thank you for your quality post and for being a part of the needlework community!