Closing the heel gap in socks

Here is my favorite way to ‘close the gap’ between the instep and the gusset on heel flap socks.

I’ve tried several ways to close that little gap, and this is the one I’ve settled on as my favorite because, of the methods I’ve tried, it blends in the best. My previous favorite method was to pick up a stitch from in between the gap – using one side of each stitch in the row below and knitting them together. The problem with this method was that it left an obvious twisted stitch right there at the join. It closed the gap great, but I cringe at the twisted stitch!

This method blends in so much better, while still closing that gap really well.

So, here’s how I do it!

Here’s a heel flap, ready to have the gusset stitches picked up on the one side:

I’m going to knit into the very first heel flap stitch, and essentially do a lifted increase in that stitch. Here’s the stitch:

And one more angle showing the stitch I’m talking about:

We’re working on the left side of the heel flap, after we’ve knit our instep stitches. The easiest way to work on this side is to use your working needle to lift up the stitch and then knit into it – like so:

You’re now ready to pick up the gusset stitches.

This showed you the left side, but what about the right?  When you are picking up the stitch on the right side, prior to working your instep stitches, it’s easiest to pick up the stitch using a spare needle, and then knitting into it. But remember to pick up the stitch at the base of the heel flap – not an instep stitch.

(Here’s why the heel stitch works so much better than the instep stitch – when you pick up the stitch from the heel, you are replacing the stitch column that will get eaten up when you pick up your gusset stitches.  This allows the extra stitch to blend in.  If you picked up a stitch from the instep, it would still blend in to a degree, but not as well.)

Here is what the gusset area looks like when it’s done:

This sample has no gusset decreases worked, so keep that in mind.

Here is a finished sock that I used this method on:

Notice how it blends in really well!!

So, that’s how I close the dreaded gap! 🙂

Happy Knitting!!