Greenhorn noun an untrained or inexperienced person

If you’ve checked out any of my other sock patterns, you know I’m a big fan of top down socks with traditional heel flaps. They’re easy, they’re comfy, and I think they’re lovely. But every now and then, you want to play with something a little bit different. And that’s what I did here.

Instead of grabbing half your stitches and working a heel flap with them, this sock has you sneak in some increases on either side of the leg. That lets you make the heel flap, the gusset, and the top of your foot all at once. The fit is quite similar to a traditional heel flap (so if you like how those fit, you’ll like this), but you spend more time working in the round and less time picking up stitches. Plus it looks awfully cool!

And don’t worry, if you’re feeling like different is hard (and really, we all have those days), there’s a variation included to let you work them with a traditional heel flap. Because really, that cable is pretty enough to carry the show without any extra fancy bits!

They’re written in three sizes (54, 60, 66, and 72 stitch cast ons), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the sock. Just be sure that you’re working at a gauge that gives you a sturdy sock fabric with your chosen yarn!

I recommend working at something around 7, 8, or 9 stitches per inch, and I’ve included a table to help you figure out what gauge you’ll want to use for the size you need. With that range of sizes and gauges, the socks will fit a foot (measured around the ball of the foot) between 6.5 and 11.25 inches (with lots of points in between).

These are perfect for you if:

• You want to play with a fun way to put socks together…but without letting things get too intense
• You share my fondness for gloriously twisty tiny cables

They’re not for you if:

• You don’t like charts (the pattern uses charts)
• You hate swatching (you need to swatch to check your needle size)