WIP Wednesday - May/June Socks

I finally feel like I've made some progress on the socks! I've gotten the heels turned, and I just finished the gusset decreases. From this point, they should go relatively quickly to the toe decreases, and then I can be done!

I do a pretty basic heel flap - on the right side rows, I slip 1, knit 1 across. On the wrong side rows, I slip 1 and purl across.

When I first started knitting socks, I bought the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Sock Book, and have found it to be very helpful. Granted, I've bought other sock books since then, but this one remains my standby. They have gauge-based templates for both top-down and toe-up socks, and charts of numbers to use in the templates based on your gauge and desired sock size. I've only used it for top-down so far, but I find it to be very user-friendly.

Here's a closeup of my heel flap and gusset. For some reason, the past few pairs of socks that I've done two at a time, I've had a really hard time with the heels. I kept having to slip pieces from one needle to the other to get the yarn and the socks in the right places. I'm not really sure what I was doing wrong, but this time it went very smoothly. I did the actual heel flaps simultaneously, then switched to one at a time for the turn. Once I got done the first turn, I picked up one side of the gusset and then went to the other sock - which put my yarn right where I needed it for the back needle. I did the second heel the same way, so I was all set for the instep. I worked my instep row across both socks, and then on the front needle, I picked up the other side of the gusset to start the row. I don't feel like I did anything differently this time, but it was so much easier and intuitive that I must have changed something.

That's all for today - hopefully the next time you see these socks, they're on my husband's feet!