Do you ever find that there’s a, well, slight gap between your knitting expectations and reality?
That’s certainly been the case for me over the past few months. Back in August, I had some big plans to knit all the socks. I cast on with some precious Fab Funky Fibres Neverending Rainbow yarn (I’d been treasuring it for over a year) for our #UseEveryScrapKAL. And I also had plans to knit one, or even two pairs of Jen’s Moorland Socks, September’s Confident Knitting pattern, in our custom FFF Confident Knitting colourways … and had another pair in mind to knit besides! My sock drawer was in need of a refresh, and I had lots of good intentions to restock it.
Alas, as is so often the case, my knitting enthusiasm far exceeded my available knitting hours, and so it’s October, and I’ve not yet finished the Neverending Rainbow socks I cast on in August, let alone started any other pairs!
Which is totally fine.
I’m certainly not mad that my Neverending Rainbow Socks are still on the needles … I love picking them up and luxuriating in those happy colour shifts. In fact, my progress with them might be so slow because I keep pausing to admire them! But I have been lusting after a garter stitch short-row heel ever since I saw Jen’s prototype of the Moorland Socks, which, as it happens, was also knitted in Neverending Rainbow. Here are Jen’s socks when they were nearly finished and, on the right, after 18 months of machine washing and wearing. Look how wonderfully vibrant they’ve stayed!
How it started …. and how it’s going! Image on the right is © Jesse Wild.
Anyway, I was feeling really impatient to try out those heels! If I’d planned ahead, I could have simply popped a garter stitch short-row heel into my toe-up socks, no problem, using the instructions from the Moorland Socks. That’s the beauty of a short row heel … it’s knit the same if you’re knitting cuff down or toe up. But I’d already knit past the point of heel insertion and definitely didn’t fancy ripping back. But then it occurred to me … there’s no reason you can’t knit a short-row afterthought heel! So let me present you with my UseEveryScrap x Moorland Sock mash up:
This couldn’t be easier to do. If you’d like to give it a try, here are the highlights (though you’ll need the Moorland Socks pattern from Confident Knitting for full instructions. You can get your copy here.)
I marked my row, picked up stitches and cut open my sock just as you would if you were working a regular true afterthought heel (more details in this post). This is a 64 stitch sock, so I picked up 32 stitches on each side of the row that would become my heel opening.
Since this is a short-row heel, it’s only worked across half of the heel stitches, then you’ll graft your heel to the remaining live stitches. I used magic loop for these, and just left my unworked stitches on the cable of the needle. You could put them on waste yarn if you preferred, or on a DPN if that’s the method you were using. I chose to work my heel from the live stitches on the sole side of the heel opening, so that the graft was on the leg, rather than under foot, where it would see more pressure and wear.
I then just worked the garter stitch short row heel according to the Moorland Sock pattern instructions. (Ahh I do love working short rows in garter stitch … no purling required!) I made sure to leave a long tail when I joined in my yarn, to close up any small holes where the heel meets the sock.
There’s my finished heel, ready to graft (on a rather gray day, it must be said). After I worked the last row, I cut a tail three times as long as my heel opening and simply grafted my garter stitch heel to the stitches that had been waiting on hold. (We’ve got a video tutorial for grafting here.)
The socks are, of course, not quite done, but I am now able to try them on, and I’m even more excited about them, if that’s possible. I love the squishy feel of the garter stitch short-row heel .. it’s like a cosy hug for my heel. A little leg knitting and some ribbing is now all that stands between me and a winter of wearing these fabulous rainbow socks. I can’t wait!
Speaking of waiting, if you’ve been wanting to get your hands on some rainbow-y goodness from Fab Funky Fibres, good news: we’ve got a new drop going live next Friday, 29th October at 10am! Neverending Rainbow is just one of the colours that will be in shop, many of which are brand new (like Park Life, pictured above). We’ll be sharing more details on the blog next week, and today we are kicking off a week of rainbows on our social media channels. But if you fancy a sneaky peek, we’ve also listed the yarn that will be available in the online shop, so you can start perusing! Please note, this will be our last Fab Funky Fibres update this year, so if you’ve been planning to ask for some glorious rainbows as a gift this year, do alert your gift buyers!