I am knitting a Christmas stocking for my dear friend’s new son in law. I am trying to make a stocking that matches the others in her family. Problem is the intarsia (never done before) and no pattern. So I made my first chart and am done with the intarsia but am confused how to do the heel since the stocking is flat and then sewn together.
If a pattern says to start with the right heel (which really is only half of the heel) which heel is considered to be the right?
Should the sl 1 be at the outside of the heel or the inside where the two halves are sewn together to actually make the heel flap?
I think this stocking may be a Mary maxim pattern. I would really appreciate any advice you have to offer.
Thank you!
Welcome to Knitting Help!
See if the pattern defines the left and right heel somewhere at the beginning. If you can post the name of the pattern or a link to it that might help.
It sounds like this is a top down stocking (knit from ribbing to toe). Usually the slip stitch is at the outer part of the heel so that you can pick up sts along that side for the gusset.
Thank you for replying.
I did not have a pattern for the stocking, I just tried to copy the design on a stocking my friend asked me to make. Then as I got to the heel part I found this pattern which is in fact knit top down (and I knit the entire stocking 60 stitches wide flat) So now I have 60 stitches which I divided into 3 parts: 15, 30, 15.
The pattern is www.canadianliving.com/crafts/knitting/holiday_stockings.php
It can be found under Canadian Living.com
Now I don’t know which group of 15 stitches is right and which is left. I do know that I will have to sew the r heel and l heel together to make the actual heel.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Thank you!
Chrys
It seems that the pattern starts with knitting the [I]left[/I] heel. When all the sts were on one needle, you finished with a knit row so that the next sts would be the purl row. The directions for the left heel start out with that purl row using the strand of working yarn that is coming off the needle tip. You’ll purl 13sts (or in your case 15sts) and turn. So that will define the left heel. It’ll be the 15sts next to the working strand of yarn.
Thanks for the pattern link. Those stockings look like fun to knit.
Thanks for the rapid reply.
Since I did not follow that pattern only because I did not have it, I am not sure if I ended with a purled row or a knit row. I will look closer st he last row of the sock to see if I can tell.
But I guess that the slip 1 should be on the side of each heel that will not be sewn together. If I put a sl 1 on the side that is sewn together to make a full heel, I would think there would be holes along the center.
Does this make sense to you?
It would have been way more fun knitting this if I had done intarsia before and if I had this pattern all along. It certainly was a learning experience!
I just hope that what I wrote above makes sense to you!
Thanks
Chrys
If I’m reading the pattern and what you’ve done correctly, you work to the middle of the piece, turn, and work to the outer edge. Your slip sts should be done on the outer edge, not in the middle where you split for the heel. HTH and that your stocking turns out to your satisfaction. It does look like a fun knit. If you’d like to post a photo of your work, we’d love to see. A WIP photo might help clarify things.
I have a total of 60 stitches across at the bottom of this stocking. There is a stitch holder in the center that holds 30 and a stitch holder on both ends that have 15 stitches in each.
I do not have 52 stitches at the bottom as the written pattern since I did not find the pattern until I reached this point.
What next?
Thank you!
Chrys
Very nice!. Well the slip sts do seem unusual in the center of the heel but that may be to give you a nice edge to seam the stocking.
The seam will go up the back edge of the heel and leg.