Strawberries and moss stitch

So, it's been an interesting, if long, week.  Firstly, I had a wonderful weekend - on Saturday I went to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC with my best friend and godson (plus her mother-in-law and sister-in-law!), then Sunday was the Great British Craft Festival (which I dragged my husband to!).  The former was huge, and my legs were so tired, but my purse a lot lighter.  There were so many lovely things!  I'm hoping a couple of items that were out of stock are available again soon, but we'll have to wait and see...  The latter was smaller, and more about card making, though I still got some lovely things.  My husband and I even had a tutorial on how to make a sliding card!  The picture below shows all the lovely things I bought, which will be future blog posts:

The other reason it's been long is that the last two days I've been at the office past 9pm, which when I start before 9am isn't ideal!  I'm supposed to finish at 5.30, but it's been really busy.  Looking forward to the weekend!

Anyway, enough of that, lets get onto the interesting part of the week: the makes.

As the title suggests, I've been working on moss stitch as part of the throw I'm making.  Specifically, I decided to make three moss stitch squares: one classic moss stitch, one double moss stitch and a third in broken moss stitch. 

Lets start with moss stitch.  This is a classic pattern that I've seen used quite a lot.  For an odd number of stitches, you simply K1, P1, to the last stitch, K1.  Then repeat that row until it's the desired length (if you have an even number of stitches, you need to swap knit and purl for even rows).  Here's how it looks:

The second square I tried was double moss stitch.  I did this one on the way home from a day at the horse racing (a work social event) earlier this week.  For this one, on an odd number of stitches, the pattern is:
Row 1: (K1, P1) to the last stitch, K1
Row 2: (P1, K1) to the last stitch, P1
Row 3: repeat row 2
Row 4: repeat row 1
You continue these four rows until it's the desired length.  This is a picture of the finished square:

The final square of the week is broken moss stitch, worked as follows (over an odd number of stitches):
Row 1: (K1, P1) to the last stitch, K1
Row 2: K
This, unlike the other two moss stitch patterns, is different on the back and front.  This is the side I've decided is the front (looks most comparable to moss stitch):

I think I might knit two, and use one each way round...  But then there are so many other lovely stitch patterns to try!  Next week, I'll hopefully have finished a squares one I'm working on...

Now, you may be wondering where strawberries come into all this...  That's because of the knitting related sewing project I mentioned last week:

It was rather simple to sew - you start with one rectangle of each fabric (the lining and outside - I've used co-ordinating strawberry pattern cotton for mine, from Dunelm Mill) and sew together.  Then, fold up one edge to form a pocket (worth making sure you've enough fabric for this before you start - I didn't for my first attempt so it was too short for my knitting needles!). I then sewed the sides, and regularly to form vertical lines that will help keep the knitting needles in place.  I even added a little flap on the top.  The only problem I have is that it's now full...

Anyway, that's it for this week - next time I'll be posting about two bags that I've made (one crochet, one knitted) as well as another square for the throw.  Until then, have a great week!