This is where I left off at end of Part I. The tail of the sock yarn came through the final stitch that was knit in sock yarn, which is just before the first stitch that was knit with scrap yarn. Coming through that last stitch’s loop at 1. I then wen through the TEEPEE to the right (2.) and then through/behind the left part of the loop (1.) and through the TEEPEE at 3.

Now I look for the next TEEPEE on the right – and there it is at (4.) with the orange arrow.  The TEEPEE is of yellow yarn.

So let’s skewer that one!

In photo above I’ve put my needle through that yellow TEEPEE and you can see my sequence – Red Arrow, Green Arrow, Purple Arrow, and now Orange Arrow.

Until now, I haven’t pulled that yarn snug as to pull in that first loop we came through. But it’s time to do that.

And above, everything is snugged up.

Until now, we’ve been working on the side view of the sock. (Above, the rainbow coloured yarn is the actual short rows of the toe, while the blue on the right is that last part of the foot.)

Now I’m going to turn the orientation of my work so that the rainbow-toe part of the sock is facing away from me, and the blue part facing towards me. At the same time, I am going to ‘tuck most of the white scrap yarn to the inside of the sock:

So my thumb is on the top of the foot while my fingers are on the short rows and bottom of foot.

Notice I haven’t tucked the scrap yarn completely inside the sock. I want enough of it still showing that I can easily see the TEEPEES for the rest of my stitching. And remember – TEEPEEs point to the TOP of the TOE.  On the back the toe opening where my forefinger is, the TEEPEEs will look like V’s but they are not – because TEEPEEs point to the TOP of the TOE.

The tail I’m stitching in is dangling down on the front, facing me. So the next TEEPEE I will look for is on the backside.

There it is! I roll the work towards me a little to find that stitch, but I’m not changing the orientation of my work. See the Blue TEEPEE stitch. Let’s get it!

And then since that TEEPEE was on the far side, the next one will be on the near side:

Oops. Photo a little blury – trying to snap these pics with my left hand on a right handed camera! But I think you can see I’ve skewered the next TEEPEE, this time on the near side.

And so we work our way across from left to right – from a TEEPEE pointing to the TOP of the TOE on the far side, then on the near side, and so on.

A word of caution – don’t pull the stitches you are making too tight or you will make a seam – and annoying ridge. What we are actually doing is knitting an extra row that joins the top of the foot to the toe. So each TEEPEE from one side shouldn’t be pulled up tight against the TEEPEE on the other side. Rather, they should be snugged only as close as the length of one stitch – which is what becomes your ‘new row’ or ‘Kitchener Row’. The exception if the few stitches at each end where you snug them up a little more to reduce the ‘dog ear’ corners.

So. I carry on from near to far TEEPEE to TEEPEE until there are only 4 TEEPEEs remaining. Two on the near side and two on the far side. Here’s the two on near side, and the last TEEPEE a skewered til now was on the far side.

You may have to click this larger to see – but I’ve marked the two TEEPEEs with red lines. What I’m going to do with my needle is go under the left bar of the left TEEPEE, then over top of (skipping) the right bar of the left TEEPEE, and then through both parts of the right TEEPEE as in a usual manner. This combines two stitches into one, just as we did in the beginning of the other side, and this will help reduce the dog ear corners.

The reason to skip the right bar of the first stitch – the right side of one TEEPEE, plus the left side of the next TEEPEE are part of the LOOP of a single stitch. As marked on the photo below:

The top of the loop is concealed by next row, which in this case is the white scrap yarn.

So if you put the right bar of the left stitch, and the left bar of the right stitch you would actually be running the yarn in AND out of the same loop. Meaning the stitch would be dropped and the sock would be toast.

Expressed another way, the right bar of the left stitch and the left bar of the right stitch forma VALLEY not a TEEPEE.  And that’s why we work the TEEPEES, not the VALLEYS.  (If you Kitchener the Valleys you will end up will entire row of open stitches!)

Sorry if I beat that to death!

Anyway, we’ve joined the two stitches to one on the near side, and now we do the same on the far side. But don’t pull this last stitch snug yet, or it will be hard to find those last two stitches.

And here we repeat the last step – pass the needle under the first par of the left TEEPEE, skip the right part of that TEEPEE, then do the final TEEPEE as usual.

Now with any luck your needle is now exiting through the SAME loop as you exited from the step you did just before. You’ve got the yarn going through the same loop twice, but it won’t drop the stitch because the first time through that loop tied into the near rows, and the second time through is tying the other side of that loop to the far rows.

In the above photo I’ve turned the work slightly to show you that last two stitches.

The light blue tail of yarn is where I exited the two last TEEPEE on the near side, and I left that slack rather than pull it snug. And the yellow part of the yarn is where I am in the process of exiting the last TEEPEE on the far side.

IF you don’t end this way – its very likely you missed a TEEPEE somewhere on the way!

Now, pull that all nice and snug up.

That’s the end of the Kitchener row. Now, see my needle – one yarn away from where my (blue) tail of yarn is.

I’m going to run that needle and tail to the inside of the sock for weaving in the end. And I will show you how I do that in Part III of this tutorial.