Sock adventures

Baby socks are a fun knit -- quick, adorable and useful. So far, my favourite heel construction has been the afterthought heel, but why not try to avoid breaking the yarn and sewing? I decided to try the German short rows or Boomerang heel. I looked up a few tutorials, but there was something off with explanations every time, so I drafted my own, heavily relying on these two sources: https://www.knitgrammer.com/blog/mds-and-ds-in-knitting/ and https://nimble-needles.com/tutorials/german-short-row-heel-tutorial/

The one important technique here is the Make a double stitch or mds. This is worked similarly on both purl and knit sides: put yarn in the front, slip the next stitch purlwise and pull back on the working yarn to reveal two stitch legs of hte stitch you just slipped. That's the double stitch. 

As with others heels, you knit the German short row heel across half of your stitches -- meaning we will leave half the stitches alone for a bit on a needle and will work on the second half of the stitches. On that second half, think of stitches as being in 3 parts: two sides that will be "turning" and the center that will be just knit/purl-ed across. On my baby sock, I have 28 stitches total. The heel is worked over 14 stitches. I did 4+6+4 for the sides/middle sections.

Way forward.

Row 1: Knit across. The heel short rows structure starts on the purl side. 

Row 2: Mds and purl to the end. Turn your work.

Row 3: Mds and knit until the double stitch. Turn your work. 

Row 4: Mds and purl until double stitch. Turn your work.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until you have doubled up all the "side" stitches; in my case, I have 4 double stitches on each side. 

Knit two full rounds -- over all the stitches (in my case all 28 of them). This prevents holes at the sides. As you come across the double stitches, knit two together. This does potentially affect the overall sock colour pattern, if you have one. 

Way back.

Once again, we are working over the same half the stitches as before. 

Row 1: Knit across the center stitches and knit one more stitch. Turn your work. In my example, I knit 4+6+1 and turn. 

Row 2: Mds, purl across the center stitches, purl one more stitch. Turn your work.

Row 3: Mds, knit across until the double stitch, knit the double stitch together (regular k2tog), knit one more stitch. Turn your work.

Row 4: Mds, purl across until the double stitch, purl it together and purl one more stitch. Turn your work.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until you all the "side" edges are used. 

The heel is done! Well, mostly. While you do continue knitting in rounds, the last row is on the wrong side so you will have one more row with mds as you turn. Knit the double stitches you come across as you connect two halves to form the sock again.