Congratulations! As Rebecca said, yes, weave in your tail. Be sure to go up and down, not side to side. Side to side will take away from the stretchyness provided by the ribbing at that point. (I once did side to side weaving on a sock where I changed colors frequently, and it really make the sock hard to get on.) Can you join at cast-on so you don't have the dip? I join by the trading stitches method. I don't know how others do it. Yes, picking up stitches for the gusset is the hardest part. I usually pick up 2 extra also. I bought double sets of needles and worked on each sock alternating back and forth so they were both done at the same time, but I have never had "second sock syndrome" where I didn't want to start the second one. He wants to play with your masterpiece, your fabulous creation!!!??? LOL! Oh well, at least he takes an interest in what Mom's doing. Tell him you'll knit him a pair to wear one of these days. Cute story.

Thank you for the replies! Donna--I understand what you mean about finding what is "right" vs "wrong" for me in my own techniques. But I suspect there is something "wrong" with my first join because I just can't find ANY reference to it, or demonstration of it, in the internet knitting world. That leads me to believe that my method will cause some kind of--not sure what to call it--geometric abnormality? Like, it will knock one row off and mess up the pattern? Something like that? I don't know... To recap (because I'm probably not explaining myself very well): my first join is similar to the technique of switching the positions of the first and last stitch. Only, instead of switching them, I actually knitted them together. Because I am doing a K2P2 ribbing, I counted that as my first knit. Then I got my fourth needle, and proceeded to knit, starting with the second K stitch, then 2 purls, etc. Was I wrong to count the knitted join as the first knit stitch? To avoid ladders (since tightening wasn't working too well), I just repeated my joining technique of knitting (or purling) together the last stitch on one needle with the first stitch on the next needle. Then I brought in needle #4 and continued. That made those ladder junctions into stairsteps. Is that ok? Or will that majorly mess up a more complicated pattern that I might want to do someday? Oh--I think I figured out what I'm disliking so much about this process. It isn't the dpns, per se, it is the teensy weensy sock yarn. It is so wispy that I cannot for the life of me get the tension right. It is too wispy for my fingers to hold on to, so my tension is always loose. I think I have tried wrapping it around my hand, fingers, elbow, arm, shoulder, etc. about 37 different ways to no avail. The only technique I haven't tried is routing it around my neck. I'll try that one tonight after I get the kids to bed! If that doesn't work, there's always teeth! Wishing I would have used worsted weight for my first socks! Thank you again for your help. I hope my questions/problems made sense. I'm not too good with the knitting lingo yet. :-) Francy

You cast on 52...you knit the heel flap....you turned the heel....giving you about 1/2 the number if stitches you started the heel flap out with....youn know have a total of 26 (instep) plus 14 ( or 13, the stitches on the heel after turning)for a total of 40 stitches ( you are heading toward 52 stitchs) You picked up sts along the edges of the heel flap...one per row...each side of the flap...picking up probably 28 stitches....which is about 14 more than you need....so you decrease one stitch every other row at the spot where the instep meets the cast on stitches. The site in the link is really very good....but doesn't give number of stitches nor gauge for size. Linda C Here is a link that might be useful: knitting socks

I do not find knitting socks to be difficult and was surprised after reading everyone's concerns here. What I do find is that the pattern often calls for needles that are just too big and I end up with a huge sock. I am making some Magic Stripe socks for a friend's daughter to use as dorm socks. Only problem is that though I can make a pair from one skein of Magic Stripe, there is not enough yarn in this particular kind of striping to start the second sock exactly where I started the first-the repeats are too far apart. Soooo, I guess she will get that second sock just slightly off the striping of the first sock. By the way, Magic Stripe is so cute to use in making booties for little boys. Not feminine enough for girls IMO, but I will make a baby sock and add a row of eyelet holes at the bottom of the cuff and crochet a tie to lace through the holes. Nice small booties for a young baby and so preppy looking for a boy.