Great excitement here – Matt and Hellie are engaged!

He phoned last night, within the first 15 minutes of his new status. That was sweet. He said he had decided that waiting for Liverpool to win the League might take too long after all. Plans, insofar as they exist, are for next summer and Loch Fyne, but we've got to think about the midges.

Hellie's mother Rachel phoned a bit later for a wee shriek. Matt had spoken to her husband on the subject a week before – the young sometimes turn out to be touchingly old-fashioned. His parents also knew, but no one else. Hellie had long admired a ring of her (other) grandmother's which Rachel had inherited. A clandestine meeting was arranged in a Pret a Manger so that Rachel could hand it over to Matt.

It was slightly odd, to pick up the Unst Bridal Shawl after receiving this news. I knit the Princess with the vague intention that it was for granddaughters and granddaughters-in-law to wear on their wedding days. That left any particular bride free to say no, thanks, I'd rather be married in jodhpurs. Or so I felt. I am overjoyed that Thomas's bride will wear it on November 1 but she didn't have to.

But the Unst shawl is different, with all its imperfections. It is being knit for Hellie. It must be made clear to her that she's not stuck with it. There are plenty more weddings to come, insh'Allah.

As for other knitting, I did my Rams and Yowes stint and have started the legs of the final rank of yowes. I should finish them today. Thank you for your help with the border. I am much taken with your idea, Knitting08816, of picking up stitches for two borders, one on each side of the steek stitches; joining them with a 3-needle bind-off when they're big enough, and then proceeding with some ribbing with double yarn. We'll see.

As for Kitchener stitch, I feel like you, Jean from Cornwall, that the existence of the leaflet in yesterday's link is enough to explain the phrase “Kitchener stitch”. I feel like whoever it was, when he discovered the source of the Nile. When I got started on this, 15 years or so ago, the OED didn't have it – and I mean the great big multi-volumned OED as supplied on CD-ROM. I'm glad to hear they've moved on, and I think they've got earlier quotations (by a bit) than any I had mustered.

But the issue wasn't just early citations, it was also why. And now we know.

My own theory is that despite occasional references to the “Kitchener toe” in the interbellum period, the phrase didn't really get going until patriotic knitting started up again in WWII. I was very interested to hear that your mother didn't know of it, Lou.

Devoted readers will remember, for I'm sure I've mentioned it before, that I wrote on the subject both to Msgr Rutt and to the then-current Lord Kitchener. Rutt replied at once, a kind letter – he was interested, and of course had tracked down early appearances of many a knitting term unknown to dictionaries. But he couldn't help with “Kitchener stitch”. Lord Kitchener took a year to reply, and was much briefer. He had never heard of it. I treasure both letters.

I am doubtful about whether ungrafted sock toes were really that bad for the wearer, although grafted ones were probably better. And I agree, of course, Tamar, that Kitchener had nothing to do with the invention of grafting or of grafted sock toes. I have an early (pre WWI) book myself in which sock toes are grafted.

I'll return to the subject of Archie's sweater tomorrow.