My Cup of Tea socks

I saw this pattern on Ravelry and thought it would be a nice one to allow me to keep my hand in with a heel-flap-and-gusset heel, and a decorative pattern which confined itself to a neat panel down the front.

I used Drops Fabel Sand long print, even though the pattern wouldn't show to best effect with the stripes, I think it turned out well.

The first thing I needed to do was adapt the pattern to my usual 72 stitch cast on, on 2.75 mm dpns. I  also decided to work in my usual way, with the sole/heel stitches all on one needle and the instep stitches divided evenly over two needles. I start by knitting the sole stitches and don't 'number' my needles (effectively working clockwise rounds), so I was rather flummoxed by the redistribution of stitches and renaming of needles at various points in the pattern. I expect it works, but I couldn't be bothered with it.

Another thing which puzzled me briefly before I dismissed it was the rib pattern on the cuff, and I carried on with my usual k2, p2 for 16 rounds.

My additional cast on stitches resulted in 6 (knit) stitches either side of the central panel. Having been so used to knitting plain socks, I found adding a pattern a little slow going, but it's always lovely to see a pattern developing. As I'm short-legged, I decided to work one less pattern repeat down the leg, finishing on the row 11 to work the heel flap over half my stitches (36).

I enjoyed how fast the heel flap grew, and then I had to recalculate again to work out how many stitches to work when beginning to turn the heel. Here comes the maths - don't fret, it's only numbers!

The instructions call for sl 1, k17.
17 is half the heel stitches (32/2=16) plus one; with the slipped stitch at the start, this comes to 2 stitches past the half-way point of the heel.
So for my heel: (36/2=18+1=19) so sl 1; K19 (etc).
I didn't change the numbers of purl stitches on the wrong side row, although the resulting heel start is a bit pointy for my round heels.
Once all the heel stitches were worked, with an ssk (RS) or p2tog (WS) taking a stitch from each side of the gap created by turning the work to 'close the gap', there were 20 stitches remaining for me, instead of 18 as shown in the instructions.

One of the reasons that I like an all-in-one heel is that I'm not fond of picking up stitches and get bored with keeping track of gusset decreases. Luckily, I have a couple of sets of 2.75 mm dpns, which allows me to use extra when dealing with gussets, instead of redistributing stitches. Because I ended the pattern on a R11 before doing the heel flap, my pick-up-and-knit 20 sts down each heel flap was a pattern R12. I then did a round (pattern R1) to 'establish' the gussets, each on a separate needle in addition to the heel/sole and two instep needles, so a total of 5 needles for stitches.
I decreased 1 stitch each side of the gusset on even pattern rounds (starting R2); taking 2 pattern repeats to get back to 36 sole stitches.

I decreased back to 72 stitches, but I could have decreased by a couple more on each side of the instep. Finishing the foot and toe was straightforward, although I left the toe at 12 stitches top and bottom to kitchener stitch.

I could have finished the foot a few round early - I did 30 rounds after the design ended on the instep, assuming the toe would be 4.5 cm, but it's more like 5 cm with my tension gauge, only a tiny bit long in the foot. The decision to do one less pattern repeat on the leg turned out to be a good one - I would have had to cast on more stitches in the cuff to accommodate my bulky lower calf, and then decrease them away after one pattern repeat.

The photo shows the socks unblocked. They were perfectly comfortable, and are now in the washbasket!
I've still got a 'fiddly pattern' pair of socks on one set of needles, but am itching just to do a plain and straightforward pair again. In the meantime, I've picked up the alpaca jumper which has been left over summer while I tried to work out the instructions for the sleeves and how that applied to my arm length. That will be next, watch this space!