Knit Socks - Betsy Lee Mccarthy [11]
You create a small gap where you turn the needle over each time. You should have an equal number of stitches on both ends of the needle after the gaps when the same number of rows has been worked on both right and wrong sides. After a few rows, you'll see the gap and know that you knit (or purl, depending on which side you're working on) until there is one stitch before the gap. Then you will knit (or purl) that stitch together with the stitch on the other side of the gap, followed by a K1 (or a P1). This moves you closer to each end of the needle, until finally you will have worked all the stitches. At that point, you'll see a heel, that place where the sock changes from being a cylinder into a recognizable sock shape.
SECRETS FOR TIGHT, SMOOTH GUSSETS
Gussets are those little triangular shapes that provide the extra room we need for getting heels in and out of socks; they differentiate shaped socks from tube socks. To create gussets on each side of the sock, a number of stitches need to be picked up and knit, first along the right side of the heel flap and then, after knitting across the instep stitches, down the left side of the heel flap. The technique for picking up stitches is the same for all needles. Pick up and knit gusset stitches with an empty needle for double-point needles and the appropriate needle tip for circulars. The stitches can be picked up with the needle tip itself or with another helper needle or crochet hook.
A nice, tight join between the heel and the point where gusset stitches are picked up is one characteristic of a well-constructed sock. The number of new stitches picked up along each side of the heel flap is generally the number of rows in the heel flap divided by two, give or take one or two. If you're making a heel flap in which the first stitch in each row is slipped, pick up one stitch for each of the chain selvage stitches created (one for every two rows worked). You do this by going down into the outside loop of each stitch, under a whole stitch.
Weaving in Loose Ends
Weave the old yarn on the diagonal forward to where the new yarn is worked, and weave the new yarn on the diagonal back to where the old yarn was worked. Weave them into the back of purl bumps, a few stitches one way, then turn and go back into a few purl bumps in the other direction, and then turn again and tuck them into a few more purl bumps, in a Z-like configuration.
It's important that you pick up enough stitches to avoid holes along the edge of the heel flap and top of the gusset triangle. If you're concerned, pick up one or two more stitches than the pattern calls for. It will just take a little longer to work the decrease rounds to get down to the original number of stitches. This will not adversely affect the appearance of your sock, but gussets with gaps or loose spots will. Another way to get a smooth, tight pick-up edge is to knit into the back of the stitches picked up on either side of the heel flap the first time you knit around after the pick-up round. To minimize any looseness at the top of the heel gusset at either side of the instep stitches, lift up onto the instep needle the bar between the heel and instep stitches (on both sides of the instep) and knit them together with the first and last instep stitches.
Tighten up and tack down looseness or holes after the sock is completed. When Lucy Neatby, a well-known sock designer, called this strategy “selectively suturing” in a class I took from her years ago, she made this all okay for me! In fact, for a while it didn't seem like I'd really finished a sock unless it was properly and selectively sutured. Additionally, and even more importantly,