60s shift dress | clarinda kaleidoscope

October has been a great month for me – I love having an Autumn birthday and this year I had not one but two sewing challenges. Thanks to my blog devouring activities I had read about the Cat Lady Sewing Challenge which I thought was a really fun idea. At about the same time I volunteered myself as a pattern tester, to give a beginner’s perspective, for Lou Lou – a new pattern from English Girl at Home. As both had October deadlines I decided to combine the two – this was possibly not such a wise decision.

I immediately started to look for suitable fabric. I was very excited to find this rather funky design called Cheeky Black Cat from Textiles Francais – whilst this fulfilled the brief for the Cat Lady Challenge it was far too structured for the Lou Lou which is meant to be floaty and drape beautifully.

However, I thought the 60s style A-line shift would work well with the fabric and that I might look a little bit like Samantha from Bewitched.

Sadly, I was wrong.

I have to confess that I haven’t done the dress justice at all. It is fully lined with a funky little piece below the dress itself . Colour matching the lining with the little balls of wool the cat is playing with still couldn’t create the feline grace I had hoped for.

However, it was a fun make – one of my colleagues asked if it was my Halloween outfit – which was not quite the reaction I was expecting!

And back to the Cat Lady element: this is my lovely cat Tambo – the latest in a long line of black cats: Leo, Flynn, Scout, Puffin, Jude and a highly aloof tortoiseshell Serafina Pekkela