Bath Fair preview....

Another busy week at Washerwoman HQ!

This coming Sunday is the Ashley Hall Vintage Fair at the Assembly rooms in Bath, http://www.ashleyhallfairs.co.uk/

Here are a selection of a few items I have been washing & preparing to take along. This includes 40's Paisley wraparound dresses, vibrant coloured 50's ball gowns....

This beautiful vintage wedding dress.....

Wearable Horrockses 50's cotton print dresses.... and much much more......

Now, back to the ironing, see you there!

Love Vintage Fair, Wenvoe, Wales.

Yesterday I braved the wind and the rain to cross the bridge over to Wales for the first Love Vintage fair in Wenvoe (near Cardiff). The event took place in a charming village hall, that may have been the village school in a former life? I loved the wooden panelling in the main room which was painted a rather brave shade of blue! It made a great back drop to the stalls of eye-catching goods

Above is a rather jumbled view of my stall (as I wasn't quite set up!)

Samantha's stall with pretty linens and some very funky handmade rings, key rings etc

Above is Claire's stand, it doesn't do justice to her unique handmade jewellery & pretty display. She sells under the name of Random Vintage (www.randomvintage.co.uk)

These ladies knew how to set out their stall of fantastic kitchenware to full advantage, even the jelly was real!

Their attention to detail put my efforts to shame! They are "Nest", Shirley & Anna. Nestvintageliving@hotmail.co.uk

This basket of treasures was on Nadine's stall. As well as china, glassware, pictures & prints there were also several rails of Vintage clothing on sale at the fair. I will add the details of the stalls when I unpack the car & locate the rest of the business cards that I gathered.....

The tearoom area looked so pretty with vintage cloths & a fab selection of homemade cakes.

This is Maggie's stall at the start of the fair, there was hardly anything left by the end of the afternoon! Thank you both for organising a lovely fair & we await the date of the next one.......

Some Dairy House goodies.

I have been over at the Dairy House today, after tidying and restocking our stand I wandered around to see what other goodies were on sale.....

Above are a beautiful pair of Barbola bookends that were hard to resist.

Then there was this pretty child's patchwork quilt along with vintage buckets, spades & tambourines.

Here is a scrummy basket of colourful crochet blankets.

then on our stall I have placed more fabric covered boxes and a selection of French & English textiles suitable for all sorts of projects.

visit http://www.dairyhouseantiques.co.uk/ for further details.

Nice frock.........?

I have just watched the fascinating and enjoyable BBC programme of the story of Enid Blyton (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nxkm8/b00nxklj/Enid/) There were superb sets, excellent acting and all very evocative of the period.. BUT..... why oh why did they have to use a total of 3 Cath Kidston dresses? Some might say I am being hyper critical, but in this day and age when there are dozens of vintage fairs where costume designers can find plenty of original 40's dresses it does seem a great shame to resort to the High Street.

I have nothing against the pretty designs of CK, far from it as I own several of her dresses (including the one shown above!) I just feel that if you are putting on a "costume drama" of this type & quality it should be true to the era. It certainly cannot be a question of cost as these CK dresses retail at about £80- £90 each and you can still buy a good 40's dress at a vintage or Antique fair for anything between £45 and £75. One may also argue that sizing is tricky, there are ways around this as dresses can be made from vintage patterns using vintage fabric, both of which can be found on the Internet or specialist fairs. Helena Bonham Carter looks to be an average size, but it was she who was wearing the CK dresses, another character called Dorothy wore some great vintage dresses (but appeared to be the larger size of the two women).

Come on BBC costume department, stop being so lazy & get out there to see what is on offer!

Thank you for your comments on this one, I had no idea that there was no longer a "BBC costume dept". What a shame. However it still doesn't excuse the fact that whoever worked on this production took the easy way out.

Hoorah for the Vintage and Handmade Fair!

Three cheers for Michele & Jayne! The fair on Saturday was yet another resounding success & all thanks to the blogging gals!

I am afraid I have failed miserably as only took a few photos of my stall & Amanda (aka the shabby Chick).

I was sooooooo busy from the moment the doors opened until close of play at 4 pm (and even then there were still customers in the building).

So, a big thank you for all your hard work in making this event possible.

PS there are some great photos of the event on the website http://www.vintageandhandmade.co.uk/

do take a look!

The Vintage & Handmade fair preview.....

OK, spot the silly mistake...... Handmade & Vintage instead of Vintage & Handmade....

Anyway we all know that its only 5 days to go.... so thought I would try a "dress rehearsal" on the kitchen table this morning.

To give you a taster of what I am taking along to the fair on Saturday in Chipping Sodbury...

There will be vintage fabrics, puzzles, dolls, dolls house items, Vintage Xmas decorations, fabric covered boxes, jewellery, corsage, vintage pinnies, vintage children's hankies, colourful china & a lot, lot more.......

The "dress rehearsal" was rather overwhelming and it would appear that once again I have squirrelled away far too much stuff for the fair, but hopefully I should be able to cram it all onto the table with the help of the trusty shelves!

Festive fairies....
Snowmen, gnomes.. more fairies.... the list is endless! See you there! http://www.vintageandhandmade.co.uk/

A very funky abode.....

I would like to share with you some photos I took recently in a friends home.

Isn't it fabulous?

Each corner has fab & funky arrangements of kitsch goodies..

I love the way items are grouped together, like the perspex collection of bambi's in the hallway (shown above)

The kitchen is probably my favourite room & evokes childhood memories of growing up in the 60's and 70's.

As you know I am rather keen on 50's china too!

If you are seriously into kitsch then Bronia will be selling at the Rook Lane Retro fair in Frome on Saturday November 7th. Sadly I cannot be there as I will be selling at the Stroud Rag Fair at Bisley.. and Mr W is selling at the Exeter Flea Market at the Matford Livestock centre. There are just too many events to cover on one day!!! Stop press! Just found out that the Rag market in Bisley opens at 9.30 (not 10 as I previously said). Get there nice & early as there might be a queue!