Afterthought heels are great if you are working with a self-striping yarn and don't want to get out of synch when you do your heel.
What you do is knit your socks as normal, but instead of doing a heel flap, you knit half your stitches onto waste yarn, and then knit them again with your regular yarn. This keeps them ready to be picked up later.
When you're done your sock will look like this (except probably right side out. I knit everything inside out).
Very carefully pull out your waste yarn and pick your stitches back up on either DPNs or Circulars, whatever your preference.
Next, work the heel just like a toe, decreasing until you get down to your preferred number of stitches (I did 14). And then kitchener them to close them up.
When you're finished it will look something like this (except less yellow. stupid lighting):
Tada. Finished sock. While I hate doing heel flaps (and love to kirchener) I'm not sure the afterthought heel is much of an improvement over the traditional heel. For one thing, I hate picking up stitches and weaving in ends, and with this technique you have to do more of both! But, it is definitely something to consider for those self striping or self patterning sock yarns. It does make for a nice comfy and attractive finished object though!
Ooh what's that?
Oh hello! That's my new tattoo :) I got him yesterday. Isn't he cute!!
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