Toe-Up Socks with a Drop-In Heel

Project Log: Supporter’s Socks

The completed socks – check out how nicely the striping worked out!

I’ve been continuing to knit socks since I completed my first pair and I get better at it all the time. I find socks are a great project for summer because they don’t heat you up. And they are wonderfully portable. Plus, everyone loves socks! You can even make them for the hard-to-knit-for people in your life!

So with that in mind, I decided to make a pair for my brother. He is all about brightly colored socks, so I got to work with some great, colorful yarn. The last thing I made for him was a crocheted sweater. It was at least 20 years ago, and the sleeves are 2 different lengths. He’s a sport, though – he still has it! Even though he never really wears sweaters. But because of that project, I decided that the most important thing about THESE socks is that they had to be the same length!

I made these socks from the toe-up. I’ve worked both kinds of socks, now and I like the toe-up for several reasons:

1. You can try them on as you go.
2. You can use up all your yarn if you wish (that’s hard to do with cuff-down socks).
3. All the hard parts are closer to the beginning. By the time you get to the cuff, you can just cruise.

Pattern: Supporter’s Sock by Linda Parkhurst (free pattern on Ravelry.com). I really just used this pattern for the cuff/ribbing. It’s great for striped yarn and makes a really stretchy sock. Basically, whenever the color started to change in my yarn, I knit one row. Then, on the next row, I reversed the ribbing. So, if I started with k2, p2 then, after the knit row, I would do p2, k2. At the end of the cuff, I did an inch or so of 1×1 ribbing, and then I cast off with the tubular cast off (its the Kitchener stitch). I LOVED the result! Stretchy and very attractive!

Heel Pattern: Drop-in or afterthought heel. Instructions are here.

Toe Pattern: Judy’s Magic Cast On for Toe-Up Socks (video). Its super easy to do and looks fantastic!

Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Fingering Self Striping Sock Yarn in the Fizz colorway. I think it looks like Starburst candy. And it’s super soft and wonderful to work with.

Needle: Size 0 circular

Lessons Learned:

• The afterthought heel is a great way to go whenever you are doing striped socks because it keeps the stripes looking great. Without this heel, you usually have a place at the front of the sock where the stripes are not right because of all the yarn you used for the heel. The instructions for this are here.
• I love using circular needles to make socks (the magic loop method). It is so much easier than DPNs!
• When you are doing an afterthought heel, be sure to make the cuff about 2 inches longer than you think it should be. Something about this method shortens your cuff. I thought they were the perfect length, but I finished them and and I wished the socks were a bit longer.

How to Do An Afterthought (or Drop-In) Heel

An afterthought heel is exactly what it sounds like – one that is done after the rest of the sock is completed. The entire sock is created from top to cuff (or vice versa) and a placeholder is put in for the heel. Then, after the rest of the sock is completed, the heel is inserted. Normally, in this case, the heel messes up the stripes on the front of the sock (see image). But with an afterthought heel, the striping is maintained perfectly and even the heel is striped.

This is an example of a sock done with self-striping yarn but without an afterthought heel. Notice how the dark purple stripes are not regular – the purple is really thin right opposite of the heel.

Here is a sock with an afterthought heel and self-striping yarn. Notice how the stripes in the front are even and uninterrupted?

How to Create an Afterthought Heel

1. Knit your sock, either from the top-up or the cuff down.
2. 

   Shows a sock with waste yarn in purple (right below the ribbing)

   When you get to the part of the sock where you would normally put in the heel, knit the 1/2 of the sock with waste yarn. If you are using Magic Loop, you would knit one needle with waste yarn. If you are knitting with 5 DPNs, knit 2 needles with waste yarn. Simply drop your working yarn and start knitting with waste yarn, leaving a tail. Then, when you get to halfway around the sock, pick the working yarn back up again, leaving a bit of slack and cut the waste yarn.

3. Knit a few more rows with stockinette stitch at the back, then change to your cuff pattern all the way around. Finish your cuff and cast off.
4. 

   Use your needles to pick up the stitches along the waste yarn.

   Pick up the stitches on both sides of your waste yarn. With Magic Loop, one side of the waste yarn is on one needle and the other on the other needle. You are going to knit these stitches in the round. The stitches (if they are stockinette) will form a “v”. Pick up the ONE of the 2 legs of the stitch. Generally if you have the work facing the same way it will be when you knit it, you want to pick up the right leg.

5. Using a yarn needle, pick out the waste yarn, leaving the stitches on the needle. You can start from either end.
   

   Using a needle, pick out the waste yarn.

   Here’s what it looks like when the waste yarn is being removed.

6. Start knitting the heel in the round. Knit 2 rows.
7. Start decreasing. Using the decrease method of your choice, decrease 4 times on every other row just as you would a toe in cuff-down socks. Be especially carefulto keep your stitches tight between needles. This part is especially prone to laddering! On magic loop, I did as follows:
   1. Row 1: On each needle, k2tog, knit to last 2 stitches on needle, ssk.
   2. Row 2: knit all.
8. When about 1/2 the stitches remain on the needles, start decreases 4 times on every row. Do this for 4 rows.
9. Cast off using the Kitchener stitch (grafting).

And that’s it. You should finish with a heel that looks great, is comfortable, and has nice stripes in it to match the rest of your sock.

Let me know in the comments if you plan to give this a try!

Knitting My First Socks

Project Log: “Father’s Day Socks”

Ed models the sock from the top. I made him put it on as SOON as he got home.

I used a pretty basic pattern so I’d be able to concentrate on the mechanics of the sock. I also used a fairly light-colored yarn so I’d be able to see the stitches easily. I also decided to use 5 double-pointed needles (dpn). The socks are intended to be a present for my boyfriend. I have far more experience with crocheting than I do with knitting. Until recently I had only really done knits and purls. So I figured this would be a challenge for me.

The hardest parts were:Joining the stitches after I cast on to the dpn. I was paranoid about them twisting and I found all those needles to be very awkward and unwieldy.Figuring out how to do the heel. The part where you shape the heel wasn’t too hard because the instructions were very clear, but when it said to pick up the stitches along the heel flap, I had no idea what it meant. I found this YouTube video to be very helpful, although from what I can tell there are a LOT of different ways to do this and no one is right.

Pattern: Father’s Day Socks from LionBrand.com. You will need to have a free account on LionBrand.com to access it (which I recommend highly as they have some nice free patterns).

Yarn: Deborah Norville Premier Yarns Serenity Sock Yarn (2 skeins) in the Aquamarine colorway. I’m not terribly happy with this yarn. Not only did it not stripe very well, but it pooled colors quite a bit and it had a few thickened spots in it.

Pooling of colors with variegated yarn. Thankfully its on the bottom of the foot.

Lessons Learned:

• In order to make the first row lose enough, you can use a needle 2-3 sizes larger than the one you plan to knit with for casting on. I did not do this. I thought I cast on nice and lose but when I had gotten a bit into the pattern realized it still was a bit tight. So I fed some of my yarn tail back through and made it loser (not an easy process). Or you can experiment with some alternate, stretchier cast-on methods.
• It helped me to turn the sock inside out. That way the needles I cared about the most were on the top.
• You can secure your dpn with a tiny rubber band on each end holding the needles together so you don’t drop stitches while its in your bag.
• Be sure that the needle you pull to work with next is NOT one with stitches on it.
• Make the first few stitches on a new needle especially tight to prevent laddering.
• Put the stitch marker after the first stitch so it will stay on the needle. Just remember that the beginning of the round is actually the first stitch, not the second one.
• A friend of mine told me that you can avoid the color pooling if you knit alternating rows either from 2 balls of yarn or both ends of the same ball of yarn (thanks Deawn).

The finished sock.