Hello, I'm Serena Nelson. I've been knitting for about five years. I enjoy knitting projects for my friends and family and myself. Today, I'm going to talk about and do a short demonstration on how to pick up and knit your gusset on your socks. Now, the gusset is this step that comes after you have turned your heel. And on a completed sock here, the gusset is this V shaped area in here. So, here you have your heel flap and then after that, we turn our heel and now, we are actually going to pick up these stitches on each side of our heel flap and knit this gusset. And you do that by decreasing every other row until you get down to a certain number of stitches and that number is stated in your sock pattern. And then at that point, you're actually going to start back up and knit the foot up yourself. So, the, where you would begin is once you have turned your heel, you are going to have a certain number of stitches, however many pattern states left on a single needle. And you're going to evenly divide those stitches onto two needles. Then, what you're going to do is you're going to actually start picking up your stitches along your heel flap. And now, when picking up your stitches, I always pick up the stitches from the right side into the wrong side of your knitted garment. When you pick up stitches, there's definitely a tendency to leave a little ridge where you pick up those stitches and you don't want those showing on the outside of your socks. So, you're going to pick up from the inside into the wrong side. So, you just want to pick up a stitch, you just take a crochet hook, a small crochet hook and you're just going to start on this side of the heel flap. And, you're going to insert your crochet hook through two strands of yarn. And you always want to get it through two strands of yarn, otherwise, if you go through one strand of yarn, you're going to end up usually with a small hole each place you picked up that stitch and really, the only way to correct that after you've finished the garment is to go back and darn those holes. So, you want to pick up two strands of the stitch; just wrap your yarn around your crochet hook and bring it through and you're going to put it on your needle. And then, usually also your pattern will tell you how many stitches you will need to pick up and one suggestion is, if you're a fairly new knitter, what you could do is along, like say for instance, along this heel flap, they told you to pick up eighteen stitches. Go ahead and put like a straight pin right here and that way you know you need to pick up nine stitches here and then, you'll be picking up another nine here. And that way you're going to find your, it's easier to keep your stitches evenly spaced. So, you're just going to continue picking up your stitches until you get down to the bottom. Another thing to keep in mind is when you're picking up your stitches, you always want to make sure you pick up a stitch right here down in that corner and extra stitch right there in that corner so that you don't have a hole from where it transitions from your heel flap to the front of your sock. Okay, so now you've picked up all your stitches along your heel flap and you come down to where you have your other stitches that you've been holding on your needles while you've been making, creating your heel flap and you're turning your heel heel. So now, you're going to start knitting back on these stitches and you just want to follow your pattern. In this particular pattern is a knit three, purl one. So, I'm just going to follow pattern across this needle and then across this needle and then, I'm going to end up back here on this side of my heel flap. And, once I get to this side, I'm going to just pick up my crochet hook and I'm just going to start once again picking up stitches all the way up to here. And then, I will add these stitches onto that needle. So then, I will actually have four needles, I will have two for the gusset and two for the front of the sock. And then, you will continue working your gusset in further instructions provided and normally that is done on a two row series. Every other row, you're going to decrease a stitch until you get down to the stated number of stitches in your pattern and at that point, you will have created your gusset. And when your gusset is finished, as I said earlier, that is this V section, V shaped section right here. You can see your little ridge here where you've done your decreases. You can see along here where you've picked up those stitches. Once again, this is where you've done your decrease on your gusset. And once you have finished your gusset, this is what a finished gusset will look like. You can see along here, this is where you have picked up your stitches along your heel flap. This ridge down here, this was created when you did your decreases on your rows. And both sides look the same; once again, you pick up stitches here and your ridge here created by your decreases. And that is your gusset. Once again, I'm Serena, and I have just demonstrated how to pick up the stitches and knit your gusset on your knitted sock.
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