The kfb increase without the purl bumps! Yes... there is a way...

It’s a nice increase the kfb (knit through front and back loop): quick and easy to do, but usually it leaves it’s mark on the knitting: there is always a little purl bump visible at the increase point and sometimes we just don’t want bumps showing (even tiny ones) …..

Now there is a method to do the same increase without having some unsightly purl bumps spread around our project. This method is not something I came up with myself: I read about it somewhere (sorry, but I really can’t remember where this was) and when I wrote my pattern for the Green Memories Set I needed a visual to illustrate it - but I just could not find anything usable on the internet. By the way… if you are doing the wavy pattern for the arm-warmers of the set, make sure to scroll down to the end of the post and read the last few paragraphs…

Anyway! I thought that it was time to make a little tutorial with pictures, since this little neat increase deserves it!!!
(If the following pictures are too small for your eyes, you can see this little tutorial in better resolution or download it here as a PDF file….)

I used the same increase method in my toe-up Hermione socks (here is the post with the detailed description of how to make them).

For my arm-warmers I used a slight variation of this method as explained below:

In some cases you want your increases to be more flexible and to allow the fabric to drape a little more (something I wanted to do in my “Green Memory” arm-warmers that have a wavy, chevron-like pattern).

In this case you can do the kfb variation as described above but without tightening the increased stitch on the next round! You just make the increases as described in steps 1-8 and ignore the rest of the steps that happen on the next round…. just continue knitting through the front of the loop as usual and you’ll have a looser kfb variation!