An early Christmas

Every time I look at this little lovely I have to pinch myself. I've been dreaming of having a vintage mannequin for over a decade. The longing has been almost entirely based on how the mannequin looks and the feeling of history that is bound up in the form and very little to do with it being a practical aid. But despite this, I've always wanted the mannequin to be the same size as me and finally, after other Decembers spent looking fruitlessly, this one appeared just as my husband was doing his Christmas present research this year.

You might be wondering why she's shed her wrapping and taken up residence before the 25th. That is because when she arrived she had some height issues. Although we share almost identical dimensions (in theory...in reality she seems slighter than me and as though she likes Milka Daim a little less) when she arrived it became clear to my husband that this is how I might have looked had I grown a little taller...for she wasn't just a few inches taller than me, but nearly as tall as my husband who stands at 6ft 2. The website she came from advised him on how to make her shorter, but it involved some sawing and he was hesitant to do this without my viewing her first. So I viewed, I squealed and then we sawed.

Isn't she beautiful?! I added the corsage yesterday after some debate about her attire - the rest of the house felt that she needed to be accessorised in some way, so we took inspiration from how she was displayed on the website and added this lovely pink and gold rose.

There are names to be thought about. My mother-in-law, who was visiting at the weekend, is certain that were she to come alive then she would be a flapper, so in keeping with the era, shortlisted names are Henrietta, Bea, Beatrice and Evangeline (yes, the last two are taken straight from The House of Eliott - how I long to watch again that series about the two dressmaking sisters). Unlike my other more functional mannequins which live in the garage and come out only to have pins stuck in them, this lovely will be very much a part of the house. Mr Teacakes loves to have things around that have a sense of history, so despite her girliness, he was very happy for her to reside in the dining room on a permanent basis (although amusingly, when the children arrived home from school with their friends this afternoon one of them asked why I had 'a body' in the dining room).

And the chair in the foreground of this photograph - you might remember it from this post, when it was falling apart and really just a broken wooden frame. Despite your generous encouragement that I might actually be capable of upholstering the chair myself, we eventually decided that it might be better off going to see someone more experienced. It arrived back with us a month or two ago...he has done an amazing job with it...but I am less than sure about my fabric choice...I think it might look a little like an old lady's chair (the old ladies who I come into contact with are all incredibly stylish and would almost certainly be in possession of a hipster's chair...the old lady I refer to is a mythical creature, possibly sighted only fleetingly at bus stops in my childhood and I worry that she may have sat in a chair a little like this one when she got home).  

But I'm wondering if it might be brought alive by the right cushion? I have so many ideas for fabric in my head and they all include light creams and golds...gold seem to be something that rarely crops up in fabric collections, so in the new year I'm hoping to put aside some time to experiment with printing onto cottons with gold paints...that sounds hideous, I know, but I can see exactly how I want it to look in my mind...and at least while it's up there, it looks very lovely.

Right, I'm off to gaze upon my lovely mannequin again....I am completely in love with her.

Florence x