Use a piece of spare punch card as a damage blocker when knitting short row heels. This will protect the instep stitches held in "F" or "H" position from being felted by repeated passes of the carriage brushes.
I sliced off a couple inches of punch card from the roll and punched a hole row. Yes that is a pun and a twisted use of the word whole. Then I inverse curved the sides and hung on the needles I needed to protect against felting after pulling them into holding position. You can either cut the sides or fold. I've done both in the photo for your benefit.
The punch card stitch protector works better than tape, file folders, or whatever else for ease and speed because the pre-drilled guide holes help you punch each hole to line up directly with the needles. It beats removing the stitches to a holder or WY and rehanging. Each punch card protector can last at least one pair. I base this on my very thin, almost velum, roll of punch card material.
