Gift Card Cozy/Sock Swatch

I'm working on a troublesome design idea that is requiring me to make lots of small swatch experiments. The idea hit me to turn these little test pouches into gift card cozies. Here's my basic recipe:

• Using sock yarn and 2.5mm sock needles,Turkish cast-on 22 loops.
  I originally wrote "24 loops," but that's a bit loose. YMMV.
• Knit across 22 stitches; turn.
  I loop the working yarn around the cable on the opposite side. This makes a wrap that I can use to close the short-row gap by working k2tog-tbl at the end of the first round.
• Knit a few rounds plain.

This creates a little pouch, 22 stitches on each side. I test two variations of my idea, one on each side.


When finished testing, knit a few plain rounds, then bind off.

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Why do I knit 22 stitches then turn? Because I like a nice, purled turning edge at the bottom of the pouch, but I hate purling the first stitches. Knitting, then turning around to knit the other way makes that nice, sharp bottom. It's extra fussy of me to do the little short-row wrap, because I could easily sew closed any holes with the tail that's hanging there. But are you surprised that I'm extra fussy?