The mistakes are many...

But luckily not very visible, thanks to the pattern. 

My old trusty German sock knitting group unfortunately has folded.  The list had changed owners and the new owners just didn't have the time to keep it up and have designers donate bi-monthly patterns.  However a replacement group "KreaSock", a German abbreviation for "Kreative Socken" or in plain old English "Creative Socks" was started.   This was the first pattern for the group and it looks beautiful despite the mistakes hidden between the cables.  For some reason I had difficulty with the pattern.  While the pattern is not at all difficult, it does require concentration and my concentration had gone AWOL while knitting them.

The construction starts with a nineteen stitch cable pattern knit sideways until the necessary leg circumference is reached and either Kitchener stitched together or a three needle bind-off.  Then stitches are picked up and the leg is knit as usual through the toes.  Lastly, stitches are picked up once again from the sideways cable strip and the cuff is knit.  The pattern was created by Anke Jagnow and, unfortunately, is only available in German and from the Yahoo Group KreaSock. I did not find it on Ravelry.  The other inconvenience for English only speaking knitters is that the pattern is only available in German.

I used my trusted 2.5 mm metal double point needles and a hand-dyed skein of yarn.  The dye job, as usual, is by my talented in-house dyer, aka youngest daughter.

The heel on this particular sock is a horseshoe heel.  Basically the horse shoe heel involves knitting short rows over half the heel stitches and then continuing with a standard square heel until all the heel stitches are used up.  The decreases for the gusset are placed at the end of the heel stitches and the beginning of the stitches picked up from the sides of the heel flap rather than at the end of needle 1 and the beginning of needle 4.  This is the first time I've knit this type of combination heel.  As a youngster I was taught the square heel, also called a Dutch heel.  When I picked up knitting again I divided the heel flap stitches into three and then knit/purl 2 stitches together and knit an extra stitch and then turn.  My daughter prefers the short row heel for her socks.  She claims the short row heel fits her feet better. I think the sock pattern could be knit with whatever heel fits best. 

This photo shows the horseshoe heel. 

That's all folks.  Knit on, merrily.