In today’s video, we take a look at the Fleegle Heel, which is a variation on a short row heel. This heel could be used in a cuff-down or toe-up sock, but it is most often seen in toe-up socks.
Here’s the video:
Pros: No pickup stitches!
Cons: You can’t easily do contrasting heels. You can’t do heel stitch or eye of partridge stitch (easily anyway). It might not fit a high instep foot. Self striping yarns will be altered along the gusset increases.
When working toe-up, start the heel at about 60% of the total foot length. (Or right where the ankle meets the foot.)
Increase 2 sts every other round, on either side of the heel stitches. Do this until you have your original number of stitches times 1.5, minus two sts. (The heel will now have the same # as the original total number of sock sts minus two.) You then begin working short rows to decrease and turn the heel.
Follow the tutorial pattern below to get an idea of how this works!
Tutorial Pattern, Fleegle Heel:
Work Sock Heel Homework first (found here), or work from a prior heel in the series.
Place marker for beginning of round and at 20 sts, to divide the sts in half.
Increases:
Rnd 1: K20 for instep, sm, LRI, knit to marker, LLI. 2 sts increased.
Rnd 2: Knit around.
Repeat these 2 rnds 8 more times. 58 total sts, 38 sts on the heel.
Turn:
Place marker at center of heel sts.
Row 1 (RS): Knit to 2 sts past center marker, ssk, k1, turn. 1 st decreased.
Row 2 (WS): Sl 1, purl to 2 sts past center marker, p2tog, p1, turn. 1 st decreased.
Row 3: Sl 1, knit to 1 st before gap, ssk, k1, turn. 1 st decreased.
Row 4: Sl 1, purl to 1 st before gap, p2tog, p1, turn. 1 st decreased.
Repeat Rows 3-4 until all heel sts have been worked, ending with a WS row. 42 sts.
Last Rnd of Heel: Sl 1, knit to 1 sts from end of heel, ssk, remove marker, knit to 1 st from end of instep, k2tog, remove marker, knit to center of heel. 40 sts.
Work a couple rounds plain.
Leave sts on the needle for the next heel.
LLI – left lifted increase. Using left needle, from behind, pick up left leg of stitch two rows below first st on right needle, then knit into it.
LRI – right lifted increase. Using right needle, knit into right leg of stitch below first st on left needle.
I hope this was informative! Stay tuned on Wednesday for the next post in the Sock September series!
Are you playing along with each heel type and trying out the tutorial patterns? Let me know in the comments!!
Until then, Happy Sock Knitting!
I would like to learn the fleegle heel for top down socks, do you have a video for that
Thank you
I don’t have a video specifically for that (yet) but typically Fleegle heels with top-down socks are worked exactly the same as the toe-up version! It’s a heel that works in both directions very well with no need to change how it is worked. The triangle will just be on the bottom of the heel instead of at the back of the heel.
Yarn on tap/Knitter’s Brewing Company used to have a very good tutorial on an improved version of the top down fleegle heel. Just using the toe up in reverse does not give a very good result (in my opinion).
Unfortunately the blog seems to have disappeared.
Yeah, I could see how just reversing it might not fit ideally on some feet. I think you could flip the heel by working a reducing wedge of short rows for the back of the heel while adding an increase at the end of each set of short rows — working up to the same number of stitches that you have to work up to with the regular fleegle heel, then at the end knit all the way around and do a standard gusset to decrease to your original number of stitches (same as for a heel flap heel). I think that would get you the same general shape, but for cuff down. I’ll add reverse engineering this to my to-do list and try to get a video filmed sometime soon. (No promises on how soon that happens, though!)