New Heel... well... New-To-Me at least

I just turned the heel on a pair of plain ribbed socks. The ones in the nachtblau (blue night) colorway of Austermann Step. The socks are a simple k3,p1 rib on the leg and instep with stockinette on the sole. I've cast on 72 stitches using the long-tailed cast on method on size 2.25mm circular needles (the pink ones from a Yarn Pirate "Booty Club" shipment from last fall/winter). This is producing a fairly snug sock for my medium-width size 7.5 (US) feet.

Anyway, on to the new-to-me heel. This link was posted on the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry, which is where I was introduced to this type of heel turn.

http://criminyjickets.blogspot.com/2007/08/band-heel-generically.html

There are no gusset decreases in this type of heel, though it is certainly not a short-row heel, either.

The decreases are made during the second half of the heel flap rows, just before you start the heel turn. In a traditional turned heel, you knit the heel flap with no increases or decreases, complete the heel turn, pick up stitches along the side of the heel flap, and end up with a bunch of extra stitches which you then need to decrease at the sides (usually) to get back to your original cast on number of stitches.

So I find that the band heel fits much more snugly than a traditional turned heel, and may be a good option for those that have narrow heels or find traditional turned heels to be too wide/loose/floppy for their specific anatomy.

Here is a picture of the heel just a few rows after I turned it. Click on the picture through to my Flickr account and you'll see the notes that I've added regarding where the decreases, heel turn, picked up stitches, etc are located.