How to Knit Seed Stitch

Seed Stitch vs. Moss Stitch

I’m an old-school knitter. I leaned from handbooks that were older than me, sitting on a bean bag chair in my closet. According to the books I had, seed stitch and moss stitch are the same thing. Nowadays, I see people referring to the method I’m showing in today’s video as seed stitch, and the second swatch I show as moss stitch. That’s probably less confusing but I think it’s important to know that there isn’t a universally agreed-upon term.

Case in point:

This book I have was published in 1976 and calls it moss stitch only. The stitch pattern on the far right, it calls ‘double moss stitch.’ Which I was going to show you as a variation, but as I was knitting it, it did not spark joy so I moved on to something else. You can briefly see it on the “hot mess swatch” at the end of the video.

It's easier than you might think.

Whatever you prefer to call it, seed stitch is a staple technique to keep in your back pocket. It’s the same on both sides and doesn’t roll up on itself, so it’s good for all kinds of things. My great-grandma knitted my baby blanket in seed stitch, so it’s a special one for me.

Other things it’s good for: Pillows, scarves, warm sweaters, placemats… All kinds of stuff!

How it's done:

I think you’ll benefit the most from watching the video, but here are the key takeaways: The setup row is crucial, so carefully work a k1, p1 repeat all the way across, and then double check to make sure there aren’t any mistakes before moving on to the second row. After that, every row is the same. You’ll always knit into a purl stitch and purl into a knit stitch. It’s like a checkerboard of knits and purls.

Then bind of with your preferred method. In the video I show what it looks like with the plain Jane knit-every-stitch standard bind off, the Jenny’s super stretchy bind off, and a standard bind off with alternating knits and purls.

That’s really all there is to it! I would love to see how you use it, so don’t forget to share your pics of your projects and tag me! I’m @becca.j.norman on IG and FB.