Don’t miss the 14-page special report on Sino-American relations in the current issue of the Economist.

I lay aside the Christmas Project today and return to the ASJ with joy, but I had fun moving the Christmas Project progress bar.

To double back: JeanfromCornwall, I was interested to hear that you have EZ’s brioche hat in an old Sunday Times colour supplement (as the magazine used to be called). I said the other day that that spread on the BSJ and ASJ was the first I had heard of EZ, but I noticed when I dug the tattered pages out for photocopying, that the text said she had been introduced to Sunday Times readers the year before.

I wonder if that is where the brioche hat came in? (I’ve knit it a couple of times; very quick and cosy. Meg recently figured out how to do brioche in the round – that completely defeats me.)

Sabrina, thanks a million for that wonderful tour of Chicago (comment, yesterday). If there’s a Little Italy and a restaurant called Tuscany, I don’t think we need look further afield for the source of the “Tuscany” yarn colour.

Grannypurple, yes, it’s marvellous, isn’t it, how each new stripe changes the ASJ. Or any SJ. I have currently embarked on what is intended as a fairly broad stripe of Amy’s Vintage Office (see yesterday’s pic), wonderfully evocative for those of us who grew up changing typewriter ribbons. I had feared it wouldn’t fit in very well, when I saw all my choices together, but I think maybe “Franklin’s Panopticon” will link it in, with its light tones and blue-i-ness.