hallelujah!

Here it is, finally, the A.S.S.!

I'm so sick of this thing. I just want to get it out of my house! Unfortunately, I was too busy today to drive it to my parents' house, so it will remain here for another week.
No major problems with the finishing, although seaming the shoulders was tricky--I could only find instructions for "faking grafting" bound off edges in stockinette. But since this is ribbed, those instructions didn't quite work. Perhaps I should've tried another method, but that was the only option provided for seaming bound off top edges in Knitting for Dummies. Mattress stitch on the sides was tedious, but easy, although one side seam is perfectly invisible, as it should be, and the other, slightly more noticeable (maybe just to me, since I know what I'm looking for).
Now, on to smaller and better things, namely the Guitar Man Socks for Dad and Chapeau Marnier, which, as you may have guessed, is for my One Skein Exchange buddy, lucky girl. ;o) The socks are off to a great start, although I'm slightly concerned that I won't have enough yarn--I guess I wasn't paying attention when I ordered, or assumed 2 skeins would be enough, 1 skein per sock. But the instructions actually call for 3 skeins. I'm not quite sure how to figure this out--my current approach is to continue knitting the first sock, and if it looks like 1 skein won't be enough, I'll have to order a third and hope it ships fast. I may also alter the pattern a bit to make a slightly shorter sock. I love the stitch pattern on these, it looks great and it's very simple, just a combo of knits and purls that I hopefully won't mess up.
I have also started Chapeau Marnier, sort of. I actually knit 3 rows and then had to frog, I lost a stitch somewhere (or probably forgot a YO). CM is my first attempt at using a circular needle, and frankly, I don't love it. Maybe I just bought a cheap needle, but the joins for the cable are quite bumpy--I'm a slow enough knitter without having to stop every 2 minutes to finagle the yarn over the joint. In fact, I think it took me longer to get the yarn off the needle when I frogged than it took me to knit it on in the first place!