I finished knitting the heel of my sock yesterday and eagerly switched back to the main color to resume circular knitting after the short rows. As I completed the first circuit, I noticed some holes where the short rows met the circles. As I completed the second curcuit, I noticed the holes were growing.

This was not a small hole, this was a large hole. Were it in the toe of the sock, it might allow an entire toe to escape. These socks are intended for winter wear in a cold climate. The objective is to keep the cold out. A hole this size will let in not a little cold, but a lot of cold. Far too much cold to be tolerated in an alpaca sock.

I stopped.

I examined my knitting.

I counted my stitches.

I noticed I was short a few stitches.

I examined my knitting again, noticed why the holes were growing, and put the whole thing down very, very carefully. Using a crochet hook and this fantastic repair method, I picked up the dropped stitches and got all the loops back on the needles.

Catastrophe averted, I examined the knitting again.

The holes were only slightly smaller.

I counted stitches again.

I was still short a stitch.

I sighed. I looked for the error. I re-examined the knitting.

And, I ripped out the entire short-row heel.

From reading various blogs, I know there is a problem with holes in the knitting where the stitches are picked back up after the short rows. I have read of various schemes to avoid these holes and I thought I executed one properly. Evidently, I was inconsistent. One side of the heel was very nice. There were no holes on that side and the seam where the short rows meet was essentially invisible. The other side was a ladder of dime-sized holes in the sock. The symptoms suggest some sort of difference between a knit turn and a purl turn at the end of the row. Whether the problem is a difference in tension or execution, I don’t know.

I never did figure out where that missing stitch went.

Wish me luck, I’m about to try turning that heel again.