I’m amazed at how quickly progress on the Sahara is going, considering I started this thing the evening of the 15th. I finished the body last night. Or rather, I finished the first attempt at the body. After I bound off the bottom edge, I tried it on and decided that (1) the desired length I calculated was just a skosh too short, and (2) the bound-off edge was just a skosh too tight, as it puckered in just a bit. A too-tight bound-off edge is unattractive on even the slimmest of models, but on me, it was even less attractive. So, this afternoon I’m going to rip back to before the edging detail and add probably another inch or so, re-do the edging, and then figure out a better bind-off method. Since the body is knit on 6s and the detailed edging on 5s, I might be able to get by with just my normal bind-off method on the 6s. We’ll play it by ear.

Sahara body finished on 5/20/07, before I rip back and add another inch or so

Really, it’s kind of a pain to rip back that far… It’s only 8 rounds of edging, but it’s a pain. The body is 204 stitches around, but the first round of edging detail adds 2 stitches for every 3, taking it up to 340 stitches around. That’s a lot of knitting. And then the fourth round is a (p2, k3tog-tbl) repeat, which is just annoying. Lather, rinse, repeat. Still, the rest of the sweater seems to fit beautifully so far, and I’m loving the yarn, and even the color has grown on me a lot over the past few days. I want this sweater to be beautiful. I want it to be wearable. And if that means ripping back, re-knitting, and killing my hands on those obnoxious k3tog-tbl repeats, then so be it.

Even with the ripping back, I think it’s still entirely possible to have this sweater completed by the time I go to Market with mom. Today’s the 21st, and I leave June 1st in the evening, so that’s nearly 11 full days to work on it. And given that I’ve knit the majority of it in less than 6, I think I can wrap it up in 11 days. I’ve got the sleeves and the neckband left, and a little under 2 full skeins of yarn remaining (probably around 530 yards). I’d really love to wear it in Columbus, on a night when we go out for a nice dinner. I mentioned this to mom last night, and she said that it’s usually unbearably hot in June in Columbus. I scoffed at this a little, because it’s actually been rather cool here the past week or so, and Columbus is north of here. Today, of course, it’s been in the upper 80s. That’ll teach me to scoff.

Anyway, I’m thinking about doubling up the merino/silk with some Pixel from Filatura di Crosa that I’ve got in my stash for the neckline… I’ve got one skein of this goldish-orange, and I think it will go nicely. One skein is about 176 yds, which I think ought to be enough for the neckline, considering the pattern calls for about 215 yds of color B, which is used for not only the neckline, but also the sleeve and bottom edging, which I won’t be using the Pixel for. We’ll see. I’ll try it out, and if I don’t like it, I’ll scratch the idea.

Filatura di Crosa Pixel, Color #3

Considering that I used just a tad more than 2 skeins for the entire body, I doubt I’ll have to dive very far into the fourth skein, if at all. And what that means is that I’ll have nearly 3 full skeins of yarn left for another project - 1 dyed, 2 undyed, at about 280 yds per skein. Not sure what to allocate it to yet, but I’m thinking a shawl. Or maybe, if I could somehow manage to get the three skeins dyed the same color (a long-shot, I know), another short-sleeve t-shirt… Even if I couldn’t get it dyed the same, I could work something out, I bet.

So, now that I’ve got the knitting talk out of the way, let me go off on a little tangent and rant about the current state of American television. (And please forgive me - this is going to be a lengthy rant.)

I’m a TV junkie. I’ve lived before without television, especially during my busy college days, so it’s not like I’m a hopelessly addicted junkie, but I do watch a lot these days. Especially since I’m out of work and I don’t go anywhere - there’s not a whole lot else to do. And it’s especially nice to have on in the background while I knit. I’m not terribly picky about what I watch (which is good, since I don’t have cable), but there are a few shows I’ve grown to enjoy this season. And guess what? A very large percentage of them have been canceled. Many of them didn’t even have a chance to tie up loose ends before they were taken off the air. This list includes new shows like CBS’s Jericho and The Class, ABC’s Six Degrees, and NBC’s Studio 60 (which, I’ll admit, disappointed me, but I still would have liked to see it given the chance to improve, and the irony of it being canceled to be replaced by mindless reality shows is, in a way, an example of irony at its best). It also includes longer-running shows like CW’s Gilmore Girls (canceled after its 7th season), which had decent ratings but was cancelled when the network couldn’t get their act together and persuade the main actors to sign on for another season. And when that failed, they threw together a less-than-satisfactory series finale at the last minute. Another long-running favorite, NBC’s Crossing Jordan was canceled at seemingly the last minute, and the series finale basically sucked, because they didn’t know (though they suspected) at the time of filming that it was going to be the last episode.

Look through the major networks’ lineups. What do you see? A lot of reality shows and game shows. Oh yeah, and CSI (and in my humble opinion, only the original is worth watching at all - Miami, especially, is one of the worst shows out there). Even veteran Law and Order finally got the axe. There are a bunch of comedies out there trying to fill in the void that Friends left when it ended, but most of them have failed in their first season, if not only after a few episodes (take the US’s remake of Coupling, for example, which was awful, especially when compared to the first few seasons of the original UK version). You see a few dramas that have made it - Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Lost, Heroes, even ER has made a come-back.

But a huge percentage of new shows are never even given a chance to succeed. When the ratings aren’t as high as the network execs would like in the first two nights, they put it on hiatus, move it to an obscure timeslot (Friday at 8pm? Who watches TV then? They expect it to gain viewers then??), or just remove it from the lineup completely. Some networks, like ABC, allow the unaired episodes of these shows to be available online, but so far, I haven’t heard of high viewership online bringing back a show from the dead. Shows are put on long hiatuses, which spells death for a new show - even hugely popular shows like Heroes and Lost have had lower ratings when they come back from a long break. And to make matters worse, the networks don’t highly advertise these new shows, even when they move their timeslots around. Hell, they barely advertise them at all. Makes you wonder how they expect their viewers to know when it’s on - they do want viewers, right?

Nielson ratings have shown a pretty drastic drop in viewership across the board this season. Are people watching less TV? Doubtful. So then what’s changed over the last year? Well, the networks have set up these sites for watching shows online, and the number of people using DVRs is ever increasing. So do the data analysts take this info into account? It would seem not. Something I read suggested that these viewers don’t really count anyway, since advertisers don’t care about them - viewers who record a show frequently fast-forward past ads, and there aren’t really many ads on episodes available online (and none if you download them from iTunes).

So what’s the solution? If the advertisers don’t care about the viewers who are watching on their own time - either by downloading the episode (legally or not), watching online, or recording it on their DVRs - and the number of viewers who are watching it when the show initially airs on television is constantly decreasing, what happens to shows that have a large fan base and yet still appear to get poor ratings? Even hugely popular shows like Heroes haven’t gotten spectacular ratings lately, using the current system we’ve got in place for measuring viewership. Thankfully, NBC decided to renew that show anyway. But what about other shows? ABC’s Six Degrees had a lot of fans - they’re even putting the 13 episodes filmed on DVD soon. But the show was cancelled, and will never be finished.

And what we’re left with is night after night of Deal or No Deal, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, and The Bachelor. It seems like every few weeks, the networks try to thrust a new show on us, but is it worth it to get emotionally invested in a show that is more than likely destined to be cancelled after just a few episodes? It’s hard to trust the networks these days. It’s not hard to see the future of television - the networks will be relegated to crappy reality shows and the news, and any shows with actual content will end up being produced and shown on cable channels. We’ve already seen the beginning of this trend - over the last few years, some of the best series on television have been on HBO. So are we going to have to start paying a high premium in order to watch quality shows? Because frankly, I’m getting a little sick of Donald Trump and Howie Mandel.