Blogger of the Week.

Welcome to my first 'Blogger of the week' post. I hope to do this every Friday (although it may go up late when work gets hectic). These will be blog's I follow or have recently found who I think are worth mentioning. They may not all be fashion blogs but I will have chosen them because I find them interesting or individual in some way. But onto my first 'blogger of the week'. The lovely Andrea from 'a cat of impossible colour'. I found her wonderful blog not long after I started blogging and thought she deserved to be my first 'blogger of the week'. She has great vintage taste that I find inspiring and to top it all she is an author! This women is brilliant and she let me ask her a few question, so here is my first 'Blogger of the Week' and my first interview.

How long have you been blogging and what made you start blogging?

I started blogging in 2004, when I was doing my undergraduate degree, but stopped when I graduated. The blog lay dormant for a while, but I reignited it when I quit my job as an editor at a small publishing company to work full-time on a novel. I saw the blog as a way to track my progress and keep in touch with the outside world while I was sitting at home. The style blogging aspect evolved as I started to read other style blogs and became addicted to the world of all things vintage.

How did you choose your blogs name? Does it have some special meaning?

I wrote a little article on my blog about this, which I'll quote here:

"It came from a dream I had. At least, I think it did. The way I remember it, I woke up in the middle of the night worried about my place in the universe, and my husband said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine." I asked him how he knew, and he said, "You're unique. Like a cat of impossible colour."

He insists I dreamt this. I insist this happened. Either way, it doesn't really matter. I love cats, I love colour, and I love impossibilities. It seemed to fit."

I know you are a writer but what did you want to be when you were little?
A writer! I've always known exactly what I wanted to do. I wrote my first 'books' as soon as I could write (they were probably about a page long) and I've been doing it ever since.

Where do you get your inspiration from, both for your fashion choices and your writing?
That's a hard one. Inspiration is difficult to pin down. Fashion inspiration is perhaps a little easier: I get ideas from other bloggers, from characters in books and old movies, and from pictures from other eras - mostly the 1950s. I never know what my next obsession is going to be, though.
As for ideas for my writing, I can do no better than to quote Philip Pullman: "I don't know where they come from, but I know where they come to, they come to my desk. If I'm not there, they go away again."

What is your most prized possession?
I have a couple. One would be my soft toy cat, Bagpuss, who I've had since I was born. The other would be my father's wedding ring, which I never take off. He died a long time ago.

What is the best bargain buy you have had?
I spend a lot of time rummaging through thrift stores, and have been lucky enough to find a lot of bargains! My most amazing 'can't-believe-my-luck' moment was probably when I found a 1950s chiffon party dress with a huge full skirt in a little charity shop in Northern Ireland. And it cost practically nothing.

You have some amazing vintage clothes, where is your favorite places to shop?
I do most of my shopping in second-hand stores here in Christchurch. I try to visit lots of different ones across the city, and go in regularly so that I don't miss any new stock. My hands-down favourite vintage store is Tete a Tete Vintage, on Hereford Street. The owners, Vanessa and Warren, are just lovely, and I spend many hours in there chatting to them and sifting through the stock looking for that one perfect treasure.

Tell us 3 things about you we don't know from reading your blog
Hmm, I'm not sure if there is anything I haven't mentioned on the blog at some point, but I'll give it a shot!

1. I have shocking eyesight - it's -10 in one eye and -9.5 in the other. I'm almost blind without my glasses or the extra-strong contact lenses I wear.
2. When I was little, I had an imaginary friend called Tumbles the Tiger. He was a tiger, unsurprisingly.
3. I used to be a soloist in my school choir, and sang in a band for a while. And karaoke is one of my favourite things ever.

What is your dream for 2010?
Well, in 2010 I'll be working with my editor to get my book ready for publication in March 2011 - so I guess my dream for the year would be to make the book as good as it can possibly be. I'm really looking forward to seeing the cover design next year, too, so that will be a highlight. And the ultimate dream would be to get a contract finalised for my next book as well.

Random question: What's your favorite flower?

My favourite flower is a rose. I'm a total cliche, I know.

So I have to say a big thank you to Andrea for answering my questions and wish her luck on her next book.

Plus the 3 photos above are Andrea's 3 favourite outfits, they are great aren't they?

Daisymay XOXO