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Heel Tab No Shows

Heel Tab No Shows 1

I am going to kick off this blog with a statement. I hate it when a blogger writes a big old long story before he/she gets to the recipe or pattern or whatever the case may be…yet I sit here, writing my first blog by telling you a story….hmmmmmm……..

The most popular pattern Sue ever came up with is the Heel Tab No Show Sock. It’s very popular in the summer time. Probably even more so up north, because here in Cape G in August it can be hotter than the gates of hades and ain’t nobody wearin no socks! (ok, it’s southeast Missouri….you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl!)

A really long time ago, I was at a crank in in Colorado where I watched a woman demonstrating heels on her machine. Now, at this time, heels and toes still gave me hot flashes. So I watched in fascination as she made her heel using two thirds of the needles. I was thinking, I have trouble with just half the needles so why would I do this? She was explaining that by using more needles on the heels you wouldn’t have the problem of the sock working down into the shoe. {honestly, at this point, I hadn’t made a sock that would fit my foot and feel good yet, but that’s a whole other story for a different post}

So fast forward a year or so and I was at another crank-in where I was talking to Mike Yeomans. He was working on making short socks to wear for the summer time, and he had this idea to add the little tab at the top of the heel, in the hem, so that they could be worn with hiking shoes or tennis shoes. What I didn’t know was that Mike meant to wear them on 5 day hikes in the mountains of somewhere, I thought he, like everyone else, just had the shoes!! But his socks weren’t working because they would wad up in the back of his shoe. That’s when I remembered what the other lady told me and we combined the two techniques. We told Sue our idea and she wrote the pattern. It’s free because it was a combination of several inputters and Sue is the best pattern writer. It’s so popular that one knitter changed the terms in the pattern to hand knitting terms, changed the name, but not the row counts and published it as a PAID pattern on Ravelry!!!

The Heel Tab No Show Sock is a great pattern for beginners who can cast on, hang a hem and make heels and toes. There’s no ribbing.

Heel Tab No Shows 2

Basically, you will cast on to the circular knitting machine and change over to project yarn. The heel tab is made with in the hem of the sock…so you go a few rows and make a little heel that uses more than half the needles. Here’s a link to a little you tube video I did about this part of the heel, because it sounds very confusing to read and understand. This is a case where pictures are worth a thousand words. Then you go the same number of rows as before that mini heel and hang the hem. Once you get the hem hung you go a few rows and make the heel. This time, you will use MORE than half of the needles. The first time you try a heel like this it will feel like the heel that lasts forever! Once the heel is made, it’a a downhill slide to the toe and to waste yarn for the Kitchener stitch!

Once you make a pair as the pattern directs, you can adjust the width and height of the tab to your preference. Be sure to keep notes so that you can make another pair if you so choose. I will warn you, they are fun to make and fun to wear and if you’re not a dude with giant feet, you can get a pair out of a 50g ball!

It makes me crazy happy when you post pictures of what you’ve made because of a pattern or tutorial that I’ve done, so head on over to my Ravelry group and post a picture! You won’t have to worry about someone trashing your work there, so you can post without fear of getting made fun of. Especially if you have questions or something didn’t turn out right. We’re there to help!!! The name of my Ravelry group is Jamie’s School of Hard Socks!