The Knitting Fiend

After picking up stitches around the heel flap of my easy to knit sock-U-lator sock, I began to knit the gusset.

Recall that after picking up the stitches, I had 30 stitches on “needle 2″ which is located at the bottom of the photo to the left; that’s half the number I cast on for my sock. Meanwhile needle holds the same number of stitches as needle 3, and all I remember is it was more than 15! ( Your pattern will tell you how many this holds. It varies depending on sock size and yarn gauge, but will be more than 1/2 the number on needle 2.)

To continue working the sock, I began knitting in rounds, knitting the stitches on needle #1, continuing to needle #2 and on to needle #3. Then, 1, 2, 3 again etc.

However, while knitting rounds, I had to decrease the number of stitches on the needles #1 and #3– other wise the sock would be much to wide for my foot. In this sock design, these decreases are worked in a way that forms something called a gusset. If this is a new word to you, it probably sounds difficult, but it’s really very easy.

The instructions said to knit the stitches on needle 1 until 3 stitches remained on the working needle, then k2tog, then knit 1.

So, I knit until 3 stitches remained; the work looked as illustrated to the right. I knit the next two together, then I knit the last stitch.

After that, I knit all the stitches on needle 2; these happen to go across the instep when the sock is worn.

Then, when I got to needle 3, I knit 1, worked an ssk type decrease, and then knit to the end of the needle. (If you are geometrically inclined, you’ll notice this is the mirror image of what you do on needle 1. That’s why both sides of the sock look similar. )

That finished the round. I then worked a round without decreasing.

After working this round, I alternated decrease and plain rounds until there were only 60 stitches left altogether, with 30 still on needle 2, and 15 on each of needles 1 & 3. When you knit your sock, the total number of stitches will differ from mine, but the 1/2 will be on needle 2 and then 1/4 on each of needles 1 & 3.

As I repeated the two rounds, a gusset region formed; the whole gusset region is between the black lines in the photo to the left. The “ssk” and “k2tog” decreases form slanting lines on either side of the sock; I emphasized these with a green line in the photo.

After working the gusset region, I just stopped working decreases and knit around and around until the sock was “long enough.” As you can see, I tried the sock on to test fit.

When it was long enough, I knit the toe. But, I haven’t finished that, so I’ll have to show you tomorrow.