I know, I know... the idea is to blog for 28 days in a row, IN FEBRUARY. But I figure I’m better late than never, it’s never too late to start, and fashionably late is a good thing.

So I missed the first two days of the month. Big deal. The real question is: can I keep it going?

After a serious post yesterday, I thought that today I would try for something light-hearted.

As of the middle of January, there is a new character in my life. A character straight out of a children’s book, The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes.

May I present… Madame.

In The Moffats, "Madame the Bust" dresses up as a ghost on Halloween night to scare Peter Frost, the neighbourhood pest. My dress form's life will probably not be quite that exciting. But hopefully she will derive satisfaction from the knowledge that she is my dream-come-true.

A customizable dress form is every seamstress’s dream. And since she was found at Value Village, this particular Madame is every thrifty seamstress’s dream. The price tag read $14.99, but I had a coupon for 30% off, so she became mine for the hefty sum of $10.50 + GST. A quick Google search revealed that dress forms of Madame’s caliber sell for $295.00. So, my purchase was, as Paddington would say, “very good value indeed.”

At first I wasn’t sure how to make Madame truly mine. This is accomplished by adjusting the dials to the correct measurements. Although I tried it in the store, I couldn’t make it work. But surely, I thought, someone in my house will be able to do it, and I was right. My 18 year old son showed me how. Even the height is adjustable. Now Madame looks like a headless, legless version of yours truly!

Here she is again, modeling the dressing gown I made while channelling Cath Kidston:

I used a thrifted pattern (unused) and thrifted fabric (unused yardage) so the cost was a wee bit less than if I’d ordered from here.

Unfortunately, since Madame entered my life, I have been occupied with my Advanced Financial Accounting course to such an extent that I have barely looked past the door of my sewing room. But I wrote the midterm on February 2^nd, and with that out of the way, I plan to take a few days’ holiday from the books and put Madame to work.

** You can read about the adventures of Madame the Bust. Guaranteed to make you laugh.