Pair three in my yearly sock challenge of a pair a month. My overall aim with the project is to undertake either something new or challenging with each pair.

March 1st is St David’s Day in my homeland -Wales. This month I have picked out a dragon themed pattern (The Welsh flag is a red dragon) and will be substituting the heel for a Welsh Heel as detailed in “Knitting Vintage Socks” by Nancy Bush. I’m a Welsh Knitter, but have never knit a Welsh Heel before!

This pair is the first to top-down pair of 2017 but like the previous 2 pairs they have for the most part been worked on 20 cm Addi’s. I switched to top down construction to allow for working the Welsh heel.

I omitted the seam stitch from the welsh heel to give a smoother finish. This style of heel works well with a patterned heel flap, although the resulting gusset isn not very deep. I have chunky ankles so the very wide and shallow gusset and heel works OK for me, but I suspect this style probably won’t be a good fit for slim petite feet and ankles.

I had to hibernate these for a while because - life ! They were started in March though so that’s good enough for me.