Sock heel flap - help!

Hi all

I am attempting my first pair of socks on
circular needles

(tin can knits rye socks)

I have come to the heel flap, placed half the stitches on hold and done 2 rounds, slipping stitches at the start of each round.

The issue I have is that there is now a strand of wool loose between the rounds (see pic)

Is this normal? I am assuming not and that I need to undo these two rounds… which I am scared to do! Help please!

Thank you!

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rye-sock
Congrats on working your first socks. They are fun and addictive! Keep good notes on the first one so you’ll breeze through the second.
After you put half the sts (the instep) on hold you’ll be working back and forth on the other half (the heel flap). Don’t work these sts in the round. The heel flap is to be worked back and forth.

If I understand correctly, you will need to take out the last 2 rounds. You can “tink” them without having to take all the sts off the needle at once.

Salmonmac to the rescue again! Thank you!
Ah I see, yes, I sm still knitting in the round and shouldn’t be. I don’t understand how to go back to knitting in a row when they are still placed in a circle!

Did you but the instep sts on scrap yarn? That’s the easiest way to keep them out of the way and off the working needle and yet still flexible (unlike sts on a rigid stitch holder). Then you will have only the heel flap sts on the working needle and you’ll be set to knit those sts back and forth, turning at the end of the row.

See the heel flap diagram on the left in the pattern.

I frogged the rows I had done and have quite calmly (I feel) got back to the level of the on hold stitches (which I did mark with scrap yarn)

I’m missing one stitch though and I can’t tell where :scream: Would it be at one of the sides? image|900x1200

I can’t see the whole row but maybe check in the circled area and see if you can tease out what is going on there. It may be that the knitting is just folded a bit there so that I can’t count sts. Yes, make sure you haven’t dropped an edge stitch between the heel and the held sts.

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Thank you. I think I have more or less sorted it now. That funny looking stitch you circled was a strand of thick brown in the yarn!

My next silly question is why do I have to slip a stitch at the start of each row. I can’t work out what the purpose of it is (at the moment).

What a little knitting adventure this is. I think you are right about taking notes!

Sometimes patterns call for slipping the first stitch particularly on the heel flap to make it easier when you pick up sts for the gusset. You can pick one stitch in each slipped edge stitch.
Here’s Amy’s video for picking up sts along a slip stitch edge. See especially around 1minute in the video.
https://www.knittinghelp.com/video/play/pick-up-and-knit-stitches

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Thank you so much. You’ve been so helpful and I really appreciate it. It’s the difference between me persevering and learning something new that will be with me forever and me throwing the knitting across the room and giving up forever! Thank you!

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Any time. We want to save your sanity and also keep knitting from flying across the room. I’ve seen the latter and it isn’t pretty.

This is a great adventure into sock knitting and a good pattern to use. Have fun with it!

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