So everyone I know who isn’t a knitter has been asking me who the hell Kitchener was, and what it means. The short answer is that Kitchener was a British general who encouraged British womenfolk to knit in World War II. And he had an incredible mustache! A classic handlebar jobbie right out of a Terry Gilliam cartoon. You could hang a tire swing off that thing.

The long story is that he was both a British hero of the Empire, but also kind of an asshole. He did some good stuff - as Baron of Khartoum, he put a decent government back into place and did quite a bit to help the poor. He also championed freedom of religion for the Sudanese. But in the Boer War, he used some brutal tactics to win - including the “no prisoners” order that led to the famous Breaker Morant case. And he didn’t exactly do such a bang-up job of getting Britain out of World War I, either.

But damn could he graft the toe on a sock. The “Kitchener Sock,” which weirdly enough was promoted personally by Kitchener himself, featured a unique “seamless” toe - hence the name Kitchener Stitch for the grafting that made it possible.

Hence the name Kitchener Bitch. I love the Kitchener stitch - it’s a nifty little piece of magic where you sew the little hole at the end of a sock up, but your stitches look exactly like normal knitting, so the seam completely disappears. For some reason it’s a feared and hated technique - but it’s one of those things like baking bread or even knitting itself, where people who haven’t yet learned how to do it regard it with a disproportionate sense of awe, as if it were some arcane voodoo maneuver.

I’d love to be thought of as an arcane voodoo maneuver. Or as the cranky old beeyotch that loves it. Enough said.