Moss stitch and increasing or decreasing

[stillfrazzled]

Total knitting novice here. Have debbie bliss book and trying moss stitch shoes. Just about figured out basic stitch, but entirely foxed by what to do when I increase or decrease stitches. Please help! Have started again four times already...

Try this [ how to increase]

and this
[ how to decrease]

its much easier to watch it than to try and figure it out from being told

well that didn't work lol

Are the increases and decreases at the ends of the rows? If so, it should be relatively easy to work out where to knit and where to purl to keep the pattern correct - but it is not the simplest pattern for a beginner to master increasing and decreasing. Can you post a bit of the pattern? It will then be easier for someone to give you step-by-step instructions.

Instructions say to increase at either end of alternate rows, and then decrease.

But the book also says that knit stitches must be worked on top of knit stitches, which left me as it results in rib...

I think the wording is bad. It means that if you knit a certain stitch in row 1, you knit that stitch again in row 2, and so on. That is the opposite of rib. In rib, if you knit a stitch in row 1, you purl it in row 2 (and vice versa).