Turn, turn, turn

This post is the third in a series on my explorations of sock knitting techniques using a Passap knitting machine. (Part 1:  Sock world, Part 2:  More than one way to turn a heel)

A very strange week indeed! It never occurred to me that I'd spend days knitting various heel flaps on the Passap. I thought I'd decided on which heel to use in my eventual design, but I was really curious as to why the "heel flap" gets so much good press. So I knitted one. And then another.

But I didn't just sit down and knit. Most of the instructions for machine knitting seem to assume that the knitter has had experience hand knitting a heel flap previously. Never having knitted or even owned a hand knitted sock, I didn't even know that socks could have gussets until a few months ago. And when I first heard the word "gusset" in the same sentence as "sock", I imagined one in totally the wrong place. (I did eventually learn; there are lots of pics online.)

The only way to experience "heel flap" was to knit one, of course. I started with the link contributed by Ozlorna is my last post's comments. No slip stitches, no gusset, it was the simplest of the heel flap recipes I had available, a good starter pattern. It got me to understand the structure of the heel flap sock.

Gussetless heel flap, you can see a tiny hole at the top. If I ever knit this one again, I'll pick up a purl bump from the instep stitches.  I think that may eliminate the hole.

The next heels I knitted were actually combinations of  two patterns listed at the end of my previous post, one written for a Passap, the other not. I even experimented with a pattern by Ozlorna, written for a single bed machine.

This heel flap swatchlette has slip stitches and a gusset.  (I should have knitted more "foot", because this one was hard to photograph: The unfinished edge, the waste yarn and the inserted ball all wanted to roll....)

Other than all the technical bits, this what I've learned so far:

• I prefer the look and feel of a flap with alternating slip stitches as opposed to the plain knitted flap.
• I'm not fond of picking up stitches on a selvedge before knitting the gusset.
• I can imagine how the heel flap may work well with certain designs, but isolated and without an accompanying foot and toe, I may actually prefer the look of the short row heel (with the Unholy Heel Mod from the last post). Interesting. The modified short row heel is more straight forward and less fiddly that any heel flap.
• All heels I've knitted fit my heel just fine, but I prefer the way the slip stitches feel on my heel. Dare I experiment with a slip stitch short rowed heel?

My self-imposed sock study now goes into high gear. The design phase begins this week. I'm sure there's much more to learn.