What a week... I am sewing my fingers off whenever I have a moment to do so in an attempt to have everything finished by next week. A number of sleepless nights due to toddler nightmares, a battle with a cold virus, and a horrific flare up of pain from TMJ has made my progress less than what I had hoped by the end of this week. I just cannot seem to "get it together" this winter. I am hopeful that spring will bring with it a little order and energy into my life.
Anyway, I have finished up one of the charcoal mimics (well, minus the wig). The stitching is a lot more time consuming than I had anticipated, however I think the effect has been worth all the effort. I have not scheduled anything for this weekend besides finishing up the other two, so I should still be on track for having everything finished and the ready to be posted for sale by the second week of March.

Also, as a side note, if you have e-mailed me over the last couple of months and I have not written you back, I will get on it sometime in the next week or two. I have the horrible habit of reading messages then answering them in my head, all the while neglecting to actually type out my response. When I am in the throes of working on pieces I tend to be even worse with this habit. So, once everything is finished and I have a little clarity I will set aside time to write everyone back.

Progress this week has moved so incredibly slowly. I finished the paint work on two more mimics, stained some fabric, finished up one set of limbs and nearly finished a second set. My little one is going through a lot of life changes this past month and it has rendered her understandably slightly more clingy than usual. Most of my time is being spent with her and when she finally falls asleep I have very little energy left for anything besides laying in my bed and staring off into space. My goal is to have the four mimics + three sprouting tuber ornaments finished and ready for a shop update by the first week in March. The threadbare doll I had started won't be finished by then, so I'll save finishing her for the following shop update in early June.

I had the goal of posting a blog update once a week; so far I have failed miserably. This winter has left me rather listless. The general malaise brought on by the nature of January mixed with recent hormone changes has created the perfect storm of stagnation. To be fair to myself, not total stagnation as I have made progress on the mimics - I just haven't felt like writing about it. I am slowly coming around and hope I can be a little more visible in the coming weeks. 
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I had five mimics cast; however, cold fingers + distraction led one to meet an untimely end with the concrete floor. Now there are four. The theme for this batch, which isn't so much a theme as a color scheme, is charcoal & oatmeal (which I believe I may have posted about already). I have one finished, well finished except for her hair - which, I suppose is a pretty critical part. This will be the only completely pale (or oatmeal) one. The rest will be on the dark side. Everything is hand stitched and embroidered, which took me quite a bit of time - longer than I had originally thought it would anyway. 

In other news, another issue of the DC Conspiracy's comic newspaper, Magic Bullet, just came out and I have a story (illustrated by the talented Hobbes Holluck) featured in it. The piece is titled 'Verdun', and if you have any knowledge of The Great War, you should pick up on the strong influence that horrific and eye opening moment in history has recently had on me.