FO: Afterthought Heel Socks

Last weekend, I had a great time in Fife with a lovely long walk on the beach from Burntisland to Kinghorn. It was a lovely sunny day if maybe a little on the windy side; we did sit down at one point, massive error as we both got a faceful of sand. On the upside, you get some great views of the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh, including this one along an old pier.

On the train, I finished my afterthought heel socks; they are to be a pretty late birthday present, the birthday was the last week in March, oops! I've been interested in doing a pair since reading about them on Eskimimi's Blog and, after picking the brains of my housemate Steph,  Googled to find instructions here (where it is called a waste yarn afterthought heel), though there are many options for video and audio guides to them too.

I've taken a few photos in different lights so I hope you can make out the colour of the yarn OK. The yarn is Crazy Zauberball in 2095 Indian Rose ( I think) bought at my current LYS, BaaRamEwe, and it varies between a scarlet red to a auberginey purple.

Vanilla socks, toe-up, with cast on with Judy's Magic Cast on and with a waste yarn afterthought heel. Sounds complex but really so simple! This really was brilliant, brainless knitting; after the toe plain stockinette in the round until  you had to knit half a row with scrap yarn, and then plain stockinette until the ribbing, mostly using 2.25mm needles (the ribbing I did on 2mm needles).

You do have to go back and do the heel and then graft it together and here is my pro tip: when grafting there is yarn on a needle, so it looked to me like a good opportunity to sew up the two small holes that can appear either side of the heel (this does also happen with a standard short row heel, I just pick up stitches).

I'm hoping I can photograph the week's other FO and get it out to you before my manic weekend of moving house but if not, see you on the other side!

PS. no, you do not need to adjust your set, some of these photos have weird aspect ratios; apologies for that.