How I do a Heel Flap

So I have noticed that I have been blogging a lot lately about all things knitting. Perhaps enough to move them over here to their own blog. So this is "A Daily Dose of Fiber"; and while I do certainly knit on an almost daily basis, I don't know that I will be blogging about it quite so often. But I will be posting various links, projects, and tutorials here. Things that made me go, "A-HA!!!" Maybe they will do the same for you! Lisa H. this post is for you!

So I've done some socks now. Getting better each pair, although I haven't truly turned out a major disaster yet. Probably due to my willingness to rip..rip...rip. However, there is a spot on each heel flap pattern where I keep getting stuck. I turn it this way, and that way, and curse at it, and go, "BUT I"VE DONE THIS BEFORE!!! WTF!!!!" It seems like every time I get done turning the heel and need to pick up my side stitches to do the gusset....my needles would be facing the wrong way. Huh? How is that even physically possible? I'm honestly not sure, but my friend Jenn P. had a solution for me anyway.

When I have my 18 stitches left on the needle, she told me to knit back across them once...

Like this. And you know what? It's genius! Then I am ready to pick up my side stitches easily with the needles faced the right way.

Here. Truly this is magic for me. I don't know why it seems my needles aren't facing the correct way for what the pattern tells me to do.... but this seems to correct it for me! Much faster sock knitting for me. Less cursing = faster knitting. Win/Win situation.