Anyone who knows me knows that I love lifted increases. I probably use them more than any other increase – even the typical kfb (knit into the front and back).

Why I love this increase

I use this increase a lot, and with good reason:

• it’s easy to execute
• it looks good
• it’s tight and doesn’t form any holes

When you should use it

You can use lifted increases almost any time a pattern just says “increase” or “make 1” and doesn’t specify a type of increase. Of course, you can also use it when it tells you to make a lifted increase.

I instructed you to use it in yesterday’s post on thumb gussets.

The catch is that unlike the make 1, there isn’t one type of abbreviation that’s used. I use lli  (left-leaning), rli (right-leaning), llip (purl) and rlip (purl) (oh, and the li stands for lifted increase) but I’ve seen other abbreviations too.

I also dislike M1L or M1R (the type where you twist the bar below) so I’ll often replace it with a lifted increase. This is a combo of personal preference and the fact that lifted increases tend to look as good or better in my knitting. ymmv.

The one place you can’t do it is on the first row. Since this increase uses the knitting of the previous row, you need to have a previous row or it doesn’t work. In these cases I’ll typically do a KFB if I’m instructed to increase on that first row. I may also work a row plain before starting the increases. It depends on the pattern and the aesthetics of the finished piece.

How to Do It

I wrote a tutorial on lifted increases so take a look at that. It has both left-leaning and right-leaning and both knit-side and purl-side so you have your bases covered.

Example patterns that use the lifted increase

As I’m sure you know, there are lots of patterns that use increases and can benefit from the lifted increase. Here are a few just to get you started.