Uploaded July 2012 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago

---

knitfreedom.com/knitting-video/faux-heel-flap-for-toe-up-socks

knitfreedom.com/blog/turn-heel-worsted-toe-up-heel-flap-sock-pattern Wait — heel flaps are BACK? I thought we got rid of heel flaps when the world discovered the no-holes Fleegle heel!

Nope — turns out we just took a breather while a newer, better heel flap was in the works.

It's not that I don't love the Fleegle heel, but my lovely readers and I kept bumping into a few problems with it.

Three reasons why the (beloved) Fleegle heel is not necessarily the best and only way to turn a heel:

1) You can't adjust the heel for a high instep.

2) You can't do the heel in a different color if you want two-tone socks.

3) You can't add fun heel-flap patterns like the eye-of-the-partridge heel.

But a traditional top-down heel flap isn't perfect either, because...

1) You have to knit the sock top-down. Ugh.

2) It's hard to know when to start the heel flap.

3) You have to pick up stitches.

Isn't there some way to turn a heel on a toe-up sock that solves all of these problems?

Well, it was mighty hard to find good toe-up heel-flap sock patterns on the web, so, with the help of Miriam Felton's tutorial, I created a basic pattern that we all can use.

I'm not afraid to call this heel flap perfect! It really does solve all the problems listed above, and I teach you how to do it on today's video.

The beauty of this heel flap is that you can add a pattern to the heel, even make it in a different color if you want, and never have to pick up stitches or guess when you should start.

You can easily adjust it for a high instep or a really high instep and never have socks that are too tight around the ankle.

There are no seams, no holes, and it's really fast. So fast, in fact, that it only takes a 12-minute video to do the entire thing, and that's with me explaining each step carefully.

Excited yet?

But wait! There's more.

You know I never like to pass up an opportunity to challenge you, dear viewer, to use all your skills.

Another reason to love this toe-up heel-turn technique is that's it's basically a compact little exercise for practicing many of the skills you've learned while following this blog.

In fact, while making the video I started to sound like a commercial for some sort of KNITFreedom "app store" — there's a video for that! There's a video for that too!

Any of these sound familiar?

Knitting fast
Reading pattern abbreviations
Recognizing when it's time to increase
Counting your stitches fast
Wrapping and turning
Picking up and knitting wraps on the purl side
Purling backwards
Reading your work

These are the skills and tricks that you'll use, time and time again, on complex projects, and we are going to practice all of these in the video. All in 12 minutes.

Download the free pattern for these toe-up heel-flap socks here: knitfreedom.com/blog/turn-heel-worsted-toe-up-heel-flap-sock-pattern

Sign up for the video newsletter here: knitfreedom.com/newsletter.

Happy knitting!

youtube.com/watch?v=jUSBUiSERNg