I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. It's one I'm always glad to miss – too much celebrating too near Christmas. But it's a lovely holiday, for being happy and thankful with family and friends without anything else except football and the washing-upl. You don't have to give them anything, or even go to church.

And today we can think abut JFK. I watched a New Theory program the other night. Interesting, but not very likely. It didn't even mention the Grassy Knoll, although we actually heard one of the witnesses say that the President's head snapped back when one of the bullets hit.

Computing

The external hard drive works fine with the new computer, so that's OK. For the moment, at least, I need Old Slowcoach for recording my morning weigh-in and for balancing bank statements, so I have now set the two machines up at opposite ends of the room. (Figures from past Lents indicate that the third week of abstinence from cider – that's where we are now – is when real results begin to show. And sure enough.)

I was tempted yesterday to just go ahead and order Laplink for the transfer of data and programs to the new computer. but it makes sense to wait until I have talked to Alexander and Ketki. A Man might have the advantage that he could be induced to promise in advance that he could move programs over, not just data, and not have to be paid at all if he failed. Maybe.

Knitting

All's well. I might even achieve a double today, by finishing Chart C in the middle of the Rams & Yowes blankie, and finishing the back of Milano/Relax3.

It's time some of my November stash-enhancement turned up, the Carol Sunday scarf and the Sensible Christmas Project.

ProvisionalKitchener, I was interested in your anxieties about the pattern CustomFit produced for you. CustomFit is high on my mental list for 2014. Herzog herself has illustrated at least a dozen sweaters which are said to have emerged from the system, on a good range of body shapes. But what we want is independent testers.

There's a Ravelry group, I find, with 1600 members or so. Herzog herself is there, of course, but there is a lot of independent stuff, including a thread from a poor soul who hasn't been able to achieve her own gauge. An illustration, perhaps, of what the counsels of perfection often advise, to wash the swatch as you eventually will the garment. I've never done it, but maybe this time I will.

People sound enthusiastic – especially about the fact that the row gauge in the pattern now matches reality. I'm clearly not the only knitter in the world for whom that never happens.

Non-knit

Here is a this-week picture of my great-nephewTed LeC in Washington, aged three weeks. He's clearly doing well. I may have to accelerate Rams & Yowes – he won't want it in a DC summer and by next winter he'll be too grown-up to be pushed about in a pram under a blankie.