what’s all the flap about??

are we glad it’s friday?? YES!

even though i always work at least a little on the weekend, i’m glad it’s friday. two days of peace and quiet ahead. who wouldn’t like that?

i am so close to being finished with the morning glories stole. i’m hoping to knock the rest out tonight.

i’ll be a little sad when it’s done—this one was completely entertaining to knit. and the yarn . . . but i think tonight has to be our last one as a couple. sigh.

and even if i don’t finish tonight, then definitely tomorrow. which means i’ll be blocking on sunday. with my new blocking wires. that should be fun—i can’t quite picture poking the wires through wet wool, but hopefully it’s easier and faster than i am imagining.

i’ve always had a hesitancy about handling very wet wool, especially heavier items—it’s so fragile and unwieldy. that’s one of the reasons i’m the grateful owner of a washer that does real handwashing for me. of course, the wool is still wet afterwards, but a lot more water gets squeezed out than if i actually wash the items with my hands, and it makes manipulating them a lot easier.

i put another inch or more onto the second stepsock in the car on the way to the chiroprator this evening.

only about 3 or 4 inches to go and i’m done, but i’m a little worried about how much yarn i have left here. it looks like a lot in the picture, but trust me, that ball is a mere husk of its former self. now, i knit a pair of these at christmas and had plenty of yarn left over. but these have four more stitches around, and they seem to be using a LOT more yarn. hmm.

such a bummer, because i thought that this yarn would be a good one for making men’s socks, but not if i have to buy two of them (my guys have WIDE feet). i love the guys, but they are not getting $39-dollar socks.

and as for the pink ragg socks, it’s progress as usual. this pair has definitely benefitted from being on my desk for the last couple of weeks. i’ve been able to add to it here and there on a very regular basis (not always the case; some desk socks grow so slowly that certain readers actually become concerned about them . . .). it can be a little like watching corn grow.

so, let’s talk shop for a sec. i knew you all would have some great ideas about handling the heel flap edges. and not one of you got on my back about looking the information up in one of my (many) sock books. kudos for courtesy!
trust me, if my dad was around, that would’ve been the first thing out of his mouth—”go look it up, THEN i’ll tell you the answer”.

and, as promised, i am offering a list of all the clever suggestions that came in. some of them are essentially the same, but i wanted to represent everyone who took the time to write it down for us:

It’s been a long while since I made a heel flap, but I suspect I’m not the best at picking up the gusset stitches. If the stitches are resistant, I just jab through the top layer of yarn, regardless of where, then wrap my needle and call it a picked-up stitch. I think my reasoning is that if I go through the plies of one strand, that just adds strength to the gusset. I think I made that up, but I really believe it.

Lately, I’ve been slipping (as if to knit, even on the purl row) the first stitch of every row of a heel flap. That seems to help keep the edges quite similar. Not necessarily foolproof, but worth a try, I think.

My habit is to do either one of two things
1) knit backwards for the heel flap (eliminating the purl row. I do the slips in this direction as well.
2) do the first and last stitch always in knit. This leaves a small tight garter ridge along the edge, making it easy as well to see where to pick up.

i stopped slipping the edge stitches for heel flaps as i can never pick them up again without having gappy gussets! in fact, i stopped knitting heel flaps entirely &; now knit most of my socks toe-up, with a modified short-row heel that looks exactly like a heel-flap heel but without the picking-up-stitches nonsense. if i have to knit a top-down heel flap, i do a garter stitch edging (knitting the first &; last few stitches on every row without slipping any stitches) &; then pick up the “bumps” between the rows when picking up stitches for the gusset.

So, I don’t twist the stitches in order to make one side less “wonky”, but mine don’t end up that way— here’s what I do:
Whilst you are doing the slip stitch heel flap, you are (I am assuming) doing:
*sl1, k1* *(with your SL1 being “slip 1 purlwise”)
*sl1, purl to end. (with your SL1 being “slip 1 purlwise”)
I make the snd row (purl row):
Slip 1 KNITWISE and then purl row.
It keeps my end stitches all twisty and nice. 🙂 Then I pick up for my gussets as normally called for. I love me a flap heel!

I usually slip the first stitch of ever row knitwise on both rows (k and p) – I pick up the gusset stitches a la grumperina (pick them up and knit through the back loop) – it’s worked pretty well so far!

I love the slip-stitch heel because it’s extra thick and cushy. I always slip the first stitch on both the knit and purl sides. Depending on gauge this can make the gusset a bit gappy, so then I knit into the backs of the picked up stitches to twist them to close the gaps.

Use an odd number of stitches and on the knit side, slip 1, k1 across, last stitch slip 1. Purl the wrong side rows. That helps a LOT.

Not sure where I learned it (possibly EZ?) but I always do a garter-stitch edge (usually 3 st. wide, sometimes less to suit a pattern) on each side of the heel flap. So the first and last 3 st. on every row are knit.

I always put three garter-stitch stitches on each selvedge edge of the heel flap with the slip stitches in between these (3 + 34 + 3 = 40 sts total).
Row 1: K3, *k1, sl1 purwise. Repeat from * to 3 sts before end, k to end. Row 2: K3, p to 3 sts before end, k3. Repeat.
I’ve also started picking up the heel flap stitches with very small needles (00’s) and working them in purl on only the first row after picking them up to join the heel and make the gusset. The purl bumps seem to disappear more nautrally into the garter stitch edges of the heel flap than a stockinette stitch and also to tighten up any droop that may remain.

I do the slip stitch heel as well and what I do is to knit into the back of the loop. I pick up one loop with my left needle and with the right needle and working yarn knit into the back of the loop. It gives a nice twisted edge and seems easier to do. At least that is my opinion any way.