Several weeks ago I decided that I needed a little knitting project to take away on holiday. A simple vanilla sock project would be small enough but I didn’t want to have to worry about doing a heel flap or gusset. I had bought a gorgeous self striping ball of yarn from Twisted Limone on Etsy in the colourway Midnight Rainbow.
After looking on Instagram I noticed that quite a few stripey socks were knitted up with afterthought heels. For those who don’t know, an afterthought heel involves knitting up a tube sock and then cutting into the finished sock to insert a heel (which is effectively another toe in shape) which doesn’t disrupt the even pattern of the stripes.
I looked online for a tutorial to show me how to do this step by step and I found an afterthought heel tutorial by Louise Tilbrook on her blog.
I knitted up both my socks first before I tackled the afterthought heel ‘of doom’ (scary biccies… I mean who wants to cut into their knitting. 😰 ) .
They worked up quite quickly, probably due to me wanting to knit ‘just one more stripe’. I selected a contrasting yellow wool (from Green Elephant Yarns) for the heel, to mirror the yellow in the speckled stripes.
Once completed I took the steps as outlined in the tutorial: pick up stitches, select which stitch to snip and unravel the stitches.
Once I unravelled the yarn it was relatively simple to attach the new yarn and knit up the heels.
Look, see my lovely heels!
My daughter claimed these socks as I was knitting them, despite me buying the yarn for myself.
First ever pair of afterthought heel socks – done! Another knitting goal met.
Sock notes
Self striping yarn – Midnight Rainbow by @twistedlimone
Yellow solid – by @greenelephantyarn
Afterthought heel by @louisetilbrookdesigns
I talk about these socks, the pros and cons of afterthought heels and other WIP’s in episode 2 of my podcast, you can find it here. If you enjoy watching it then please subscribe to my channel Jean the Creative Pixie where you will be notified of new videos when I upload them.
Have a great weekend.
Very lovely socks 🙂 I tend to knit a row(half a round) in a contrast yarn so I don’t have to cut the yarn and have it all unravel on me!
Thanks. I saw that method using waste yarn but I wanted to do a true afterthought while I was away from home.
Wow they look fab! It must be scary cutting into something yarny, even when I read ‘cutting’ I had a little “nooo!” moment :p
Yes I did have to read up a couple of different tutorials just to be sure I was following a correct method.
Oh my gosh! Your socks look perfect! I have not heard of the “cutting method” and I would have never tried myself. I totally would have botched it. You did a great job and I applaud you for taking that plunge and cutting your knitting. You are awesome!
Aww thank you. I’m deliberately trying a lot of new techniques with my knitting and it’s actually really good to achieve these new goals, I recommend doing it yourself.