Regression.

I hate to admit it, but this sock heel is defeating me. It's a toe up sock with a very clever structure that reverses the standard toe down shape, so you get a heel flap & gussets and all the rest. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the shape of the turning, though, and because I'm using a different yarn I have a different stitch count than the instructions I really need to understand it in order for it to work out.

The first time around it took me several tries, but I figured it out and even made some notes to help myself on the second sock. Then I made a whole bunch of other things, so that I had forgotten just about everything when I got to the second heel. My notes turned out to be somewhat cryptic, but I finally turned the second heel.

The heel flap, which should be simple, required several attempts. I was slipping stitches on the purl side instead of the knit side -- except I kept forgetting that. I backed up a lot, but thought I was doing okay.

Then I went to knitting night last night, and looked more carefully at the flap.

Somewhere along the way I seemed to have just stopped slipping stitches; the last inch of my heel flap was plain stockinette. So I pulled out my needles, ripped back, picked up my stitches, and knit in heel stitch until I ran out of gusset stitches.

Way too soon.

This heel flap was not square by any stretch of the imagination (or of the sock). It was a short, squat rectangle. On closer examination, I decided that I had turned the heel over too many stitches, and used up a bunch of the gusset stitches in the process. So at the end of the evening I ripped out the whole heel, put the stitches back on the needles, and called it a night.

Friday morning is my free time -- two whole hours with no kids, no job, nothing. I spend a lot of time imagining just what I'll do with that lovely time. Today, I decided, I would turn the heel again, so the sock would be ready for knitting in the park. (I was sure I could knit the heel flap correctly while chatting & watching kids.) Then, I would do any one of a number of delightful things during the vast amount of time that would remain.

Fortunately I examined the sock EVEN MORE CLOSELY while beginning to turn the heel again, so that I finally, finally noticed that .....

the heel was set at a 90 degree angle from the toe.

So .... no heel flap, no heel turning, no gussets.

On the positive side, reknitting the gussets in line with the heel is just fine for park knitting. Now, about all that free time....