I’m trying to knit a pair of socks from a pattern book and it has some rather confusing instructions for how to start the gusset. I’ve currently got the heel turned and have 14 stitches from that heel on one needle and 24 from before knitting the heel flap on a stitch holder and heres what it tells me to do :
“With the right side of heel flap facing you, with crochet hook (or free needle), pick up and slip onto free needle 13 sts along left side of heel flap; on second free needle, knit 24 instep sts from stitch holder; with crochet hook (or free needle), pick up and slip onto third free needle 13 sts along right side of heel flap; knit first 7 sts of heel flap onto same needle. Sl rem 7 sts of heel flap onto beg of first needle–64 sts.”
Can I get some help with deciphering these cryptic instructions? Well they’re at least cryptic to me, I’m pretty new to knitting, and I dont understand what it means by pick up and slip 13 sts out of nothing.
Thanks!
Right now, you have two needles parallel to each other and two edges that are running perpendicular to them. Amy has a video on how to pick up stitches here http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques
I think once you watch the video things will be clearer.
Hi, welcome to the wonderful addiction of knitting socks. May I suggest to you that instead of following those instructions you go to:
http://www.cometosilver.com/socks/SockClass_Start.htm
and use these instruction for knitting the gusset on Silver’s Sock Tutorial, but pick up the number of stitches it says to pick up on your original pattern. Silver’s sock tutorial is very easy to understand and gives you pictures showing you how to do each step. I think you will find it will help you a lot!
Good luck and don’t give up, it’s not really as hard as it sounds in your pattern!
Once you understand the theory, it all comes right. Once you’ve finished the long flap for the back of your heel, you “turn” the heel by knitting/purling short rows [where you turn your work before reaching the true “end” of the row and start a new row] until all the stitches on the heel flap are used up.
Then you need to pick up new stitches along each side of your heel flap. These stitches will point towards the future toe of your sock, and be 90 degrees angle to the stitches on the heel flap. Like Jeremy and the Knitter say, the number of stitches you need to pick up along the side edges of the heel flap vary from pattern to pattern. This isn’t really a big deal - just so you can start decreasing and get the exact number of stitches needed to knit the rest of the sock foot till you start the toe decreases.
Hope this helps,
Dot