The Bar Increase or Kfb (Knit in the front and back)

 The Bar Increase is considered decorative in some fabrics and blended in other fabrics. It is abbreviated-- kfb because you knit into the front and then the back of a stitch. This creates a small bar to the left of the stitch, which is visible in stockinette making it decorative. It is less noticeable or blended when strategically placed in ribbing, or when used in garter stitch because the bar blends in with adjacent purl stitches. Depending on where you place the increase, it can also blend in with seed stitch and other pattern stitches. Always swatch to see what the increase will look like and to find the best place to put it.

The increase is simple to work. Insert the right needle into the next stitch as if you were going to knit it. Wrap the stitch as if you are going to knit it. Pull the loop through, but do not remove the stitch from the left needle. Take the right needle and insert it into the back of the same stitch. Wrap the stitch again and pull the loop through. Remove the original stitch from the left needle.

Below the photos show the bar increase in both stockinette and ribbing.

When placing this increase on opposite selvedges, it's important to mirror the increases. Mirroring means that there will be the same number of stitches before the bar on the right side and after the bar on the left side. To do this: On the right side work the number of whole stitches desired minus 1. In the next stitch work the bar increase (kfb). Since the bar appears to the left the whole stitch will appear to the right of the bar. On the left side work to the desired number of stitches wanted after the bar plus 1. Work the bar increase. Since the bar is to the left of the stitch, the remaining stitches will need to be the desired number.

Example: You want 2 stitches at each selvedge between the edge and the bar. On the right: Knit 1, kfb into the second stitch.  On the left: Knit until 3 stitches remain, kfb into the third from the end. 2 stitchess will remain. 

There is a small hole that appears below the bar. To mitigate this, don't work too tightly. When manipulating fabric close to the edge is it also common to have tension issues or guttering, so take care to manage your selvedge tension on these rows.