Knitting Video Tutorial: Twined Colorwork Heel Flap

Twining is one of my very favorite colorwork techniques. I learned it quite by accident when I was first experimenting with colorwork in my knitting.

After some research, I discovered that twining is a traditional Scandinavian technique known as tvåändsstickning in Swedish and tvebandsstrikking in Norwegian. I'd like to say that this method just feels natural to me because of my Scandinavian heritage, but that's probably just in my head.

A few months ago, I made a pair of socks using twining in the round. I brought them to show the girls in my sock knitting group. On close inspection, one of the ladies commented that twining would work very well on a heel flap and that got me thinking...

I just had to design a pattern with a twined heel flap.

Twined knitting in rows

Here's a quick video showing how to do twining in rows.

And an upclose and personal look at both sides of the heel flap.

The one major difference between knitting a sock with a twined heel flap and a traditional slipped stitch ribbing heel flap has to do with how many stitches you pick up along the edges of the flap for the gusset.

Traditionally for the gusset  you pick up one stitch in each of the stitches along the side of the flap. If you do the same for a twined heel flap, the gusset will be too small. Instead, pick up approximately three stitches for every two stitches on the side of the flap.

If you are ready to try a twined heel flap, the pattern for these Road Trip Socks is available in my pattern shop.