Yarn Along 2016.18: One Sock. . . Slight Brain Power Required

Welcome to this week's Yarn Along post.  Joining in with Ginny this afternoon to see what everyone is knitting and reading.

I'm glad to say that I did finish the first sock of the pair of Hermoine's Everyday Socks that I am making my Mom with the yarn she sent home with me at Easter.  The pattern was easy to follow, and quick to knit.

With one exception.  I prefer dpns to circulars when I'm knitting socks.  So, rather than casting onto two circs or doing magic loop, I just divided the 64 cast on stitches onto four dpns and went from there.

Including working about eight rows of heel flap, at which time I realized things just did not look right. The heel flap was beginning to stick out like a sore thumb.  I was positive that wasn't what it was supposed to look like, so I reread the directions for the heel flap.  And reread them again.  No, I was doing it exactly as written.

I looked at my heel flap in progress.  It didn't look like any heel I'd ever seen.

I looked on the 'wrong' side of my knitting, and it looked like what I'd expected the 'right' side to be developing into. Hmm.

"Right" side of the heel looking rather odd.

"Wrong" side of the heel with pretty stockinette stitches near the needles.

I reread the directions again, this time from the very beginning, before the cast on.  And that's when it hit me: because I was working with dpns instead of doing the sock on circulars as the pattern was written, I needed to make an adjustment when doing the heel flap (and the heel turn).  So, instead of starting the flap with a purl row (wrong side if doing the sock on circs) as directed, I needed to start with a knit row, just like every other heel I'd knit on my dpns.

Once I'd gotten that figured out, things went much better.

Now that looks like the beginning of a heel!

So, if you ever want to knit these socks, but you'd rather use dpns instead of the circulars that the pattern calls for, just remember when you get to the heel flap, do it in this order: row 2, row 1, row 4, row 3.  It will turn out correctly.  Trust me, I know.  (And on the heel turn, substitute K for P in row 1, and then continue your turn like always--K on right side, P on wrong side).

One finished sock 

(ignore the tail that didn't quite get tucked behind the sock for the picture).

Currently I am reading an Amish mystery book, Plain Dead by Emma Miller.  It's quite good.  I'm having to make myself put it down and get my chores done, when I'd really rather just read it straight through and find out 'who done it'.