Gusset, a love story

My favorite part of knitting socks is creating the gusset, that little triangular space that connects the leg and foot near your ankle.

In traditional cuff-down socks, once the leg is complete half the stitches are set aside while knitting back and forth to create a heel flap, and decreases are then used to form the heel shape. To create the gusset, stitches are picked up along the edge of the heel flap, perpendicular to the leg.


They look so neat and orderly!

This is done on the other side as well, until it is all connected in a tube shape again, but now the tube is turned in a new direction to create the foot.


Seeing the little rows marching on away from the heel is so satisfying! This new larger tube is now decreased through the ankle area until it is the right size for the foot, and those decreases create the lovely triangular final gusset shape.


So neat, so perfect, and so little left before my sock is complete!