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Anatomy of a Sock

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January 9, 2009
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Erica Raspberry

What do all those HEELS look like?

Using Whippoorwill Hill's WONDERFUL resource Heels by Number (currently available to Socknitter's List members only), I have recreated each of the common heels using Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride Worsted. If I had been doing an actual sock it would have been 40 stitches around...what I am showing in the pictures is the last ten rows of the heel flap (orange) with a garter stitch edge...and then, the actual heel turning in yellow. To relate it to my picture of the Anatomy of a Sock, it is the portion shown in orange and dark green...the bottom half of the heel flap and the (yellow) part of the sock that is under your heel. Again...the orange part of the pictures is going UP toward the cuff, while the yellow is under your heel.

At the bottom of the page is Nancy Bush's Band Heel with no gusset.

These took an afternoon to make and it is a great little exercise to familiarize yourself with the various turning formulas and how each one fits YOUR foot :-)

 

V-Heel aka Half Handkerchief

 

 

Round heel aka French Heel

 

 

Rounder Heel

 

 

Square Heel aka Dutch Heel

 

 

Modified Square Heel

 

Band Heel aka German Strap

 

 

And one last heel...from Nancy Bush's "must-have" book, Folk Solks...you can order it here. She calls it The Band Heel and her example is done on a sock of 80 stitches, so the heel is 40 stitches (it only took me three tries to get this number in my head after doing the rest on 20 stitches...

The back of the heel is to the right in this image...with the foot coming out to the left. As you can see, the decreases for the turning start half way down the flap and then the flap itself continues all the way to where the gussets would end on any other sock. A good heel if you have a fear of gussets...but you will have to do the math yourself if your sock is not done on 80 stitches :-(

 

Generic heel turning...for any sock...
 always slip the first stitch always knit or purl one stitch after you decrease... that said...

on the right side slip one...knit across to the middle or a little past, decrease, knit one, turn (NOTE: count how many stitches are left unworked to the left...you will want to leave this many stitches unworked going back the other way :-)

Turn...you are now on wrong side...slip one. purl across until you have (# unworked on RS plus 3 stitches) decrease...purl one... count to make sure you have the same number unworked on both ends.

Turn...and keep nibbling across the gaps :-) The number you choose to go past the middle in the very first row determines whether you have a V or square or round heel...

but unless you MUST have one of those shapes...it doesn't really matter...

 

How to do a Short Row Heel