My Ravelry queue (for which, read wishlist of interesting things to knit and crochet) has over 1000 items on it, of which 200 or so are socks - just ridiculous! I need to have a cull, especially of those patterns I first queued up a few years ago when I was first learning to knit socks and experimenting with magic loop, toe-up, two at a time, and so on until I settled in a comfort zone of cuff-down on dpns. And then I stumbled across another pattern in Knitting Squirrel's blog for 'Strong Heel' socks.
I added it to the queue and then decided perhaps it was time for another pair of socks for myself. (Yes, I have other WIPs to finish, but I've realised I just like having several things on the go at once, so I can flit between projects as the mood takes me.) I'd been dithering about whether to have a pair in Drops Fabel 151 'Guacamole Print', (am I ready for orange and lime green?) then thought, to hell with it, why not have some zingy colour on my feet?
As Nicolette of Knitting Squirrel explains, the 'Strong Heel' sock is so-named, not because it is a reinforced heel, but after its originator, Gerdine Crawford-Strong. It's an easy heel to work, because instead of a heel flap and pick-up-stitches and gusset, it's created by increasing the number of stitches on the heel needle, then working short rows (although they get longer) with decreases to turn the heel. The bottom of the 'flare' created by the increases effectively sits on the line where you would measure from the point of the heel across the instep/front of ankle and back round to the point of heel again, a critical measurement for those of us with wide heels and ankles.
As always when I come across a different technique and pattern for socks, I am uncertain about how well they might fit me. So I read through the pattern, paying attention to the size of needles and gauge, comparing this to my usual 72 sts on 2.75 mm dpns with an approximate gauge of 36 sts and 48 rnds to 4"/10cm. (I think I may have mentioned elsewhere that I have something of a death-grip when it comes to knitting tension.)
I cast on my usual 72 stitches and did my usual 12 rounds of K2, P2 rib and 48 rounds of leg. Looking at the pattern, I realised that contrary to many patterns which have the heel stitches on needles 3 and 4, I've got into a habit of putting all of my heel stitches on one needle and designating it 'needle 1', starting my rounds with the heel stitches. This may not be a good way of working, so don't take this as a recommendation, but it works for me!
I reset the round counter for the flare shaping to help me keep track. I used kfb (knit into the front and back of the stitch) to do the 'M1' (make 1) increases in the 2nd and penultimate stitch of the heel needle on alternate, odd rows. This is where I had another waivery, doubting moment. If I just followed the pattern based on a 60 stitch sock, with 26 stitch/26 rounds of increases, would it fit? I needed width but not length. What was the logic behind this? I followed the link to Aaron Clark's instructions to see what that was about.
The explanation was that, assuming you were using two heel needles which each have a quarter of the total stitches, the heel needles should each end up with an extra number of stitches which is two less than the number they started with, nearly doubling the number of stitches.
So on a 60 stitch sock, each of 4 needles would start with 15 sts.
Two less than that is 13 sts.
So if you knit an increase round and a 'straight' round for every increased stitch, that's 2 x 13=26 rounds. (And across two needles, 26 extra stitches.)
So if I followed the same calculation, assuming I was using 4 needles, not 3:
72 stitch sock, divided over 4 needles = 18 stitches per needle
18-2=16 sts,
16 sts x 2=32 rounds.
Only a half inch longer, but a total of 36 stitches across the instep, 36 original heel stitches and an additional 32. 104 stitches in total.
That seemed huge; if I work at 9 sts per inch unstretched, it would fit an instep of 11.5 inches unstretched. I generally calculate a negative ease on my socks of (give or take) 25%, and if/when my ankles are a bit puffy, the socks need to stretch to 14". 9 sts x 14"= 126 sts, 25% (a quarter of which) is about 32 sts, so 126-32=94 sts. Otherwise the sock might be baggy and swim around my heels.
72 original stitches, plus 26 as originally suggested would be a total of 98 stitches and should be enough!
So, 26 rounds, 26 extra stitches (so my single heel needle had the original 36 stitches (half of 72) plus 26 extra equals 62 stitches on the heel needle).
The next little moment came when the heel starts on a wrong side and because I work 'heel needle first', there didn't seem to be any point in knitting the instep stitches after the increase row 25, let alone completing row 26 (I really don't need the length, not that one round makes much difference), as I would have had to knit across the heel stitches again before turning to start the heel. I compromised by completing the last increase round and then just knitting across the heel stitches, rather than completing the even numbered round too.
Turning the heel, I had to translate the pattern into a single needle's worth of stitches. It starts by working across the wrong side of what would have been the second heel needle and a few stitches on, the turn creating a gap between the worked and unworked heel stitches. (I've done this before, but it seems so long ago that I thought it worth documenting.)
R1 (WS) sl1, p31 (i.e. half of total heel stitches), p2tog, p1, turn
R2 (RS) sl1, k3, ssk, k1, turn
R3 sl1, purl to stitch before gap, p2tog ('over the gap' - decrease using stitches before and after gap), p1, turn
R4 sl1 knit to stitch before gap, ssk (over gap), k1, turn
...and so on, until all the stitches have been worked in. It finishes on a right side, so I completed the round by working the instep stitches.
I found that if I knitted everything back to the ends of the heel needle, I would have 32 stitches on the heel needle plus 36 on the instep needles, a total of 68.
The flare shaping of the heel brings you a good 15 rounds further down the foot than an all-in-one type of short row heel such as my favourite Sweet Tomato heel, so I did 45 rounds of foot before starting the toe shaping by decreasing to 64 stitches total and decreasing by 4 stitches, one each at the start and end of the heel and instep on rounds 1, 5, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19 20 to leave 24 stitches to Kitchener 12/12.
The first sock wasn't a bad fit, the heel shaping and decreases very neat, except that decreasing on the end stitches of the heel needle left holes when working around onto the instep stitches, which I hadn't noticed at the time. The longer leg meant it was a bit tight at the top. I decided to tweak a few things on the second sock, starting with 4 fewer rounds on the leg (so 44). The foot needed to be just a little longer, too.
Then I got a little hung up again on why 2 fewer stitches per heel needle? Sizing includes proportion, where did 2 stitches come from? All right, let's do a little more maths. (Don't be scared now, it's only numbers!)
For that original 60 stitch sock, half the stitches for the heel is 30 and the total increase was 26, which is an increase of approximately 86%.
So for a 72 stitch sock, the heel half is 36 and an 86% increase is an additional 30 stitches.
I decided to do those extra 4 sts, (and extra 4 rounds), as the length would be in and around the heel rather than the leg length, and the additional decreases would lengthen the foot a little.
On the heel decreases, I stopped a stitch short at each end of the heel needle, then started the instep with ssk, and used decreases on subsequent rounds to get down to 66 sts before starting the toe.
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| 'Strong' heel socks in Fabel Guacamole print yarn |
I recommend The Knitting Squirrel blog (linked above); well written and full of lovely photographs, tutorials and creative inspiration.
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