How to Knit Socks With Five Knitting Needles
This technique foresees knitting without any seams. Socks are knitted in spiral order, so they perfectly fit your foot.
You should calculate the number of stitches due to your foot circle. Take two measurements from your foot:
1st – instep circle; you should gage your foot from heel to the instep with the tape-measure incline.
Then, you should set the average circle: you should add instep circle and foot circle and divide this number by 2. For example, instep circle is 31 cm and foot circle is 21 cm; so 21+31=52, 52:2=26 cm. So you should calculate the quantity of stitches due to this length. It's better to round off the final number to the quantity of stitches, which can be divided by 4, in order to comfortable knitting with 4 needles.
Cast the needed number of stitches, place them on 4 needles and knit the brioche round-knit. Usually, briocheis 5-6 cm, but you can make it thinner - it's up to you. Then, knit 7-8 cm front side up to the heel. You should knit the heel with 2 needles from the half of the stitches, and the rest stitches are left on the other needles. Knit the work front side on 2 needles for about 5,5-6 cm, this is your heel height. It can be less, depending on your leg size, but starting with size 5, it's a constanta.
Then, to give the heel a shape, we make the heel descent: we divide all the stitches into three parts. If there are extra stitches, then we attach them to the central part (if the number of stitches is not divided by 3). The stitches of the central part will be knitted further, and the stitches of the lateral parts (they will form the sides of the heel) will be gradually connected to the stitches of the central part.
Start the descent of the stitches from the wrong side to finish it from the front. We knit two-thirds of the stitches with the wrong ones, then 2 stitches together - the last stitch from the central part and the first stitch from the third part - you should knit them together with the wrong ones. After that, you should turn the work and knit along the front side of the heel, while at the turn you should slip the first stitch without knitting.
Knit front side, the last stitch of the central part and the first stitch of the first part should be knitted together (slip the first stitch, knit the second one with the front one, then cast the removed stitch again to the knitted one). You should turn the work again, remove the first stitch without knitting, etc.
Continue knitting until all sides of stitches are closed. Now you should gather stitches from the side of the heel, from each second row you should collect 1 stitch + 1 additional stitch, i.e. from 2 rows you should collect 3 stitches. Turn to circular knitting, take the stitches from the left needles into work , the newly dialed stitches from the side parts of the heel and the stitches of the central part of the heel. Knit one row of front viscous. Then, in each 2nd circular row for a better heel fit, knit the 3rd and 2nd stitches from the end of the 1st knitting needle together with the front stitch and the 2nd and 3rd stitches of the 4th needle together with a broach.
