Sewing?

I don't know about this one. I think I may be pushing my own limits here. 

I used to sew a lot of things together when I was little. I never worked on an actual machine, and I never made anything I could actually wear. In fact, I remember working on a machine once and feeling as if a famished monster was gorging on cloth in an effort to get to my fingers, and that was the end of me and machine sewing. What can I say; I have a lead foot.
I think I liked taking a needle and thread and stitching two pieces of whatever together. That was pretty much it. No form, no function. I think my little sister did the same thing, although she may have been more successful with it. I even took a weird sewing elective in junior high (in addition to wood shop and painting, and I kind of wonder what the other options were because I don't remember any other choices), but we didn't really sew much of anything in that class either. In fact, I don't remember sewing anything, but I do remember learning back stitch and whip stitch and some other stitches, and most importantly, I remember my friend Michael Leung being super-gross and cool and sewing his fingertips together, which at the time was like NO. WAY... DUDE!
But knitting has led me back to sewing in the most surreptitious way. Because now that I'm finally making things that I like and want to have for a long time, I want to back them and line them and make them fancy-like. It's handmade, not homemade, right?
I am also incredibly opposed to weaving in ends. That's the devil's work, weaving in ends. GOOD LORD is it awful. Unlike many knitters, I actually enjoy seaming, but I'll leave that exposition to a different post seeing as how I don't want to infuriate and annoy anyone before a big holiday weekend.
But weaving in ends! All those little ends from balls of yarn that need to be joined and hidden, ceaselessly, in that never ending project that has finally ended. What a horrible, horrible twist of fate, that weaving in ends. You did so much work and you're finally finished and really, at this point, there should be the knitter's equivalent of cobbler elves that come out at night to weave in all your ends.

THERE ARE MORE THAT YOU CAN'T SEE

But alas, the weaver elves of old were long ago killed by the angels of mercy, because weaving in ends SUCKS.
Not only is it tedious to thread those bad boys on a tapestry needle one by one then loop them through your own knitting, or pull them through with a crochet hook, but depending on the slickness or sproinginess of the yarn, they might just pop out. Again. and again... and again. You see, they hate us. Because we gave up on them to use a new ball of yarn and treated them like whores, never appreciating everything they did - oh forget it. I can't even give them a story. I just hate them.
Which brings me to sewing. See, if I sew some really pretty cotton fabric on to the back of this baby blanket, I won't need to weave in all those ends. Then my pregnant friend won't know just how sinfully lazy I am, because honestly, if I can knit a whole blanket for a month and yet refuse to tuck in a few ends, that's some kinda paradox lazy I can't even define. ESPECIALLY if I take the time to HAND SEW cotton to the back of it. WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SEW. Is it laziness? Or just deep-seated loathing? I don't know. But I'm going to do it. In the next two weeks.
Because it's vacation! And because I just got my baby shower invitation. And because it's two weeks away.
And because I hate weaving in ends.

They make me feel like this.

Happy Fourth of July y'all!

And Happy Birthday brother Ralph!