Help with sock pattern

How-to Questions
1

I’m working on my 1st sock and now am stuck. I finished turning the heel and am ready to start gusset.

Instructions read: with 1st needle, pick up and K16 sts along edge of heel; slip the Instep stitches onto one needle and with 2nd needle K34 sts of instep; with 3rd needle, pick and K16 sts along other edge of heel and with same needle K10 sts from heel needle. Slip remaining sts from heel needle onto 1st needle. There are 26 sts on 1st and 3rd needles and 34 on 2nd needle.

  1. I am lost as to which needle is 1st, 2nd and 3rd! My current situation is 20 sts on one needle (turned heel) and 17 stitches on the other 2 needles. Is the 1st needle the one with the 20 sts?

  2. I know what it means to pick up a stitch but what about “pick up and knit”? Is this done at the same time?

  3. What part is considered the “instep stitches”?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Carol S.

2

I assume you are knitting top down, but, I’ll answer what I can:

  1. Instep is the top of the sock.
  2. Pick up and knit. Pick up with the left needle and then knit onto the right.

You might find the KH video on knitting a heel helpful. It is about half way down the page.

Sorry I can’t tell you more I do toe-up and circulars.

3

  1. Needle #1 is usually the first one at the beginning of a new round. But where you are now, I’m not sure. You don’t happen to have a way to link us to the pattern do you, or at least the name of the pattern and what book or whatever it might be in?

  2. If you know how to pick up a stitch you likely know how to do this. Do you have the working yarn behind the work and insert the right needle into an edge and pull up a stitch loop onto the needle? If that is what you do, that is also called “pick up and knit”. Some people use a crochet hook to pull up the stitch and put it on the needle. Same thing.

  3. The instep is the top of the sock over the foot part.

4

Between your responses are reading the pattern and watching the video I think I have it. Instructions make more sense now. I get lots of help from this forum, website, and a book I have called “Stitch and Bitch”. Thanks again.