Lace? What lace?

It's been a slow progress week on my two lace projects -- the Caracia shawl and the second DIC Shrug. I'm having attention issues. Maybe it has to do with it being the last week of school?* I don't know, but each time I've sat down to work on either lace project, a much higher than usual amount of tinking has been necessary because my mind has been wandering too much. A wandering mind + lace charts? Does not equal anything good.

So! What do you do when your mind won't cooperate? You knit simple shit. LOL In my case, I started putting together my afghan swap squares!

I cropped this picture so weirdly so as to spare you the sight of
my carpet that is in dire need of being swept. Ack. :P

I got the first strip of five squares done pretty quickly last night, which is a happy thing, because instead of simply seaming them, I had the brilliant inspiration to knit garter stitch borders between each square to give it a quilt-ish look. So, I'm starting at the end of one square, picking up stitches in random colors that will (hopefully) coordinate with some other part of the afghan, knitting eight rows of garter stitch and then connecting that to the next block in the strip with what I'm calling my own bastardized mattress stitch/kitchener stitch hybrid seaming method. (Who knows? Maybe it is a legitimate way of seaming something wonky like this, though I can't say I've seen it anywhere before.)

Yes, this is adding more work to the whole project than just seaming and being done with it, but I've had this vision for this afghan since the very beginning, and so this is how I'm going to do it. Once done, I'll put a border around the whole thing, and then I'll block the whole afghan...which I was realizing as I was trying to lay this strip out for a photo will likely require me to move furniture in my living room. LOL But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

At any rate, this garter stitch border knitting is the perfect mindless project. I can do it while I watch TV. My mind can wander all it wants. Just what the doctor ordered. I'm harboring a secret hope that I might actually get to finish this whole project this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

*For the record, we JUST FINISHED this morning! The kids just took their last test of the year, and we are now DONE! WOOHOO! Another successful homeschooling year comes to a close! And it has been a really good year. Color me thrilled! =)