Finishing up

Over a year ago I cast on for the back of a sweater for my husband. He'd been asking for one for quite some time, and I decided that the only way to stop the requests was to just knit the thing. I scoured the blogosphere, magazines, books, and pattern directories...but it took a while to find the perfect pattern (link in sidebar). Once I did, and he approved, I found the yarn and I promptly cast on. I knit the entire back pretty quickly, blocked it and admired my even stitches (I am usually a very uneven purler.) We held it up to his back and it looked perfect. It was then that I realized that I would need to seam it. Seaming petrified me, beyond anything that can be imagined. I was never taught to seam, you see. My first sweater (and all subsequent sweaters) was a top down raglan, no seaming required. While this simplified things for me in the short run, ultimately it limited me as a knitter in the long run.
So, a few days ago, I dug the finished back and all of the yarn out of my knitting basket. At first I thought to rip it, as I had convinced myself that I could only knit seamless garments. After looking at it for a while, and contemplating the defeat that I was about to admit, I determined that I would have to learn how to seam. It was empowering to come to that conclusion, I felt that I was telling the knitting who was boss! I've been working on it at lunch at the office and now have a few inches done on the front. My intention is to finish it by Christmas. Hopefully it will fit him...we'll see.
Last night I took some time to try to practice my seaming...I carefully knit two swatches. I laid them out and I attempted "the impossible". And you know what? It was easy. I can't believe that I was scared of that! Now I am actually looking forward to seaming!