Have you ever tried a short-row heel? It’s a very useful one to have in your sock knitting tool box! It shares a lot of handy properties with the afterthought heel: it’s worked the same no matter what direction you’re working your sock; it doesn’t require you to pick up stitches along a gusset (there isn’t one!); and, particularly pertinent for this month’s Confident Knitting pattern, you can work it without interrupting the sequence or width of a self-patterning yarn. Unlike the afterthought heel though, there’s no waste yarn (or snipping of stitches) required, and it’s shaped not with decreases, but with (as the name suggests!) two sets of short rows! It’s one of those really clever pieces of knitting that feels a bit magical the first time you do it!