I really enjoy Tunisian crochet in the round, I think you can contrast interesting yarns in striking combinations. I usually just crochet drawstring bags with the forward pass in black, then the back pass in a bright variagated yarn. After knitting Nimble Needle's toe up sock pattern, I wondered if I could do a sock in Tunisian crochet.

To my understanding, the reason people tend to dislike crochet socks is because of the bumpy texture, Tunisian crochet tends to look more like reverse stockinette in knitting. In fact, Tunisian crochet in the round is pretty similiar to knitting, I once pulled out the back-pass yarn while frogging and was left with a loose knitted fabric. However, the end result is still fairly bumpy, so I don't think it eliminates that issue completely.

This is not a tutorial, I'm just describing what I did and perhaps give people ideas on how to maybe do this better. The short row heel in particular was an issue and I think there is room for improvement. I glanced at this pattern on Ravelry and they used an afterthought heel, which may have been wiser.

I used knitting for the cuff, as I have not found a Tunisian crochet stitch with the same stretch as knitted ribbing.

For the first sock, I completely free-handed it, no counting. I did a foundation row that seemed about right, then increased by 4 stitches each row until it seemed like it would cover the largest width of my foot, then continued on. I midjudged this and had to frog it back a couple times. I tried it on multiple times throughout the process until it got close to my heel. I increased twice, did a row, then increased twice again. I then switched to crocheting flat along the heel, leaving the live stitches on a clip. This was somewhat awkward, as I did it upside down. My first couple tries didn't work very well, so I frogged it. I then decided to clip the yarn and work it the right way around. My first couple attempts to do short rows left large holes, so I decided to try the technique of Japanese short rows from knitting, leaving a clip on the working yarn before making a stitch on the foreward pass.

I did the short rows pretty awkwardly, I (right-handed) put a clip on the working yarn after the 'double stitch' at the start of the row, on the righthand side, then I put a clip on the working yarn after the 'double stitch' at the end of the row, on the lefthand side. When crochetting together, I would slip the loop on the clip onto the hook and decrease on the backwards pass.

Once I was done with the heel, I clipped the yarn again so I could start crochetting in the round in the correct direction. I then continued on as normal.