While designing my Shadow Print Sock pattern I was looking for a heel that created a nice triangle shape in a contrast colour, but provided enough depth across the widest part of the heel and ankle much like a heel flap and gusset does.

Over a few months and around 40 different iterations of sock heels, I finally landed on what I have now named the Deep Shadow Heel. This heel is developed based on Alice Yu's shadow wrap sock heel, but unlike the shadow wrap heel it provides more room diagonally across the foot and heel.

The Deep Shadow Sock heel begins like most other short row heels, where you knit rows that gradually get shorter across half of your stitches. Each row is one stitch shorter than the previous one and you’re working a short row method at the end of each row so that when you work back across those stitches on the second half of the heel you won’t end up with holes.

However, the second half of the heel is where the Deep Shadow heel differs from a traditional short row heel. You will be working rows that get longer and mirroring the shape on the first half but you end up with 2 stitches for every one stitch that went into a turn at the beginning by slipping stitches, increasing and decreasing to make sure they’re woven together nicely so there are no gaps.

What you end up with is a roomier heel, and those extra stitches are gradually decreased down with a more traditional gusset as you work the rest of your sock until you get back down to your original stitch count.

Just like a traditional shadow wrap heel, there’s not a lot of counting involved, you just knit to 1 stitch before your last worked stitch and it’s very easy to substitute into basically any sock pattern you want to.

The Deep Shadow sock heel can be worked on multiple needle types; circulars with Magic Loop, small circumference circulars or DPNs - it’s very adaptable. Although its definitely easier to work with all of your heel stitches on one needle, and that is how this tutorial is done.

With all of your heel stitches on one needle, work as follows:

Row 1:

For a contrast heel: knit the first stitch on your needle in your main sock colour, and then knit across your heel stitches until there are 2 stitches left on the needle.

For a vanilla sock: knit across your heel stitches until there is 1 stitch left on the needle.

Then continue as follows: Work a RLI into the next stitch on your needle, slip new stitch back to left needle tip, turn. The 2 sts grouped together that are now on the right needle tip are a “twin stitch”.

Row 2 (WS): purl to 2 sts before EOR, RLIP, slip increased stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Row 3: knit to 1 st before twin stitch, RLI, slip increased stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Row 4: purl to 1 st before twin stitch, RLIP, slip increased stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Rep rows 3–4 until the number of sts remaining in the centre between the twin stitches is approximately ⅓ (one third) of your heel stitches.

E.g. if you had 32 heel stitches, you would have 11 twin sts on either and 10 sts left in the middle.

Row 1 (RS): knit to twin stitch, knit first stitch of pair, slip 2nd stitch purlwise wyib, LLI, slip increase and slipped stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Row 2 (WS): purl to twin stitch, purl first stitch of pair, slip 2nd stitch purlwise wyif, LLIP, slip increase and slipped stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Row 3: knit to twin stitch, ssk to join both stitches together, knit first stitch of the next twin stitch, slip 2nd stitch purlwise wyib, LLI, slip increase and slipped stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Row 4 (WS): purl to twin stitch, p2tog to join both stitches together, purl first stitch of the next twin stitch, slip 2nd stitch purlwise wyif, LLIP, slip increase and slipped stitch back to left needle tip, turn.

Rep rows 3–4 until only one (newly created) twin stitch pair remains on each side. On last wrong side row leave increased stitch (and accompanying slipped stitch) on right needle tip before turning work.

Next row (RS): 

For a contrast heel: drop CC and pick up MC, bringing it up from under the CC tail; k2tog to join both stitches of first twin stitch together, knit to twin stitch on other side of heel, ssk to join both stitches together, k to EOR.

For a vanilla sock: k2tog to join both stitches of first twin stitch together, knit to twin stitch on other side of heel, ssk to join both stitches together, k to EOR.

Rearrange stitches on the needles so that the stitches for the heel plus 1 stitch on each side will be designated for the sole. (1 st in main colour on contrast heels)

Next rnd - dec rnd: ssk, k to 2 sts before end of heel sts, k2tog knit across instep to EOR. 2 sts dec’d.

Next rnd: knit.

Repeat last 2 ends until all extra sts are worked and you are back to the same amount of sts you started with.