Thursday 10 February 2011

Fanny Adams, Blagdon. Big Crush!

A6 Card Front
Oh dear.  I have a crush.  I get crushes all the time.  Not the teenage sort girls get on boys but the sort where you admire something about someone or something they do.  I even get crushes on shops, books, clothes styles, interior styles, countries etc...  My latest crush is all about a marvellous shop that has opened up near me.  Fanny Adams Vintage.  The owner Jane Massam, who you can read about in this lovely blog, takes vintage clothing and works a little bit of magic on them and turns the item into an altogether wearable piece that is totally individual and unique.  Talk about having the wantsies, I want the lot.  But cannot have the lot.  The stuff for sale is gorgeous but the shop is also totally divine as you can see in the above photo which Angela of The King's Daughters has allowed me to use.  Jane is on the left and Angela on the right.
You can just pop in for a latte and a slice of cake if you like and you'll get a who lot more including a tickle of the Cookie the Westie who travels around in a basket on a stick with wheels lined with red polka dot fabric.  He wasn't available for photo's, too busy being fabulous elsewhere.
DSCF0351Jane and the sweetheart, Leah (above) who now works there are like a little show.  They look so cute in their ensembles.  Leah was creating headscarfs in a wartime housewife/landgirl style when I went in there last time with my eldest boy, Big Cuckoo (who loves the milk in a stemed sundae glass and the slabs of lemon drizzel) Jane was sewing buttons on a patchwork quilt.  They are captivating.  Their husbands float in and out and customers come and go and somehow you feel like you're all part of the same family.
Net curtain dress! Needs an underskirt
I have to confess I was a bit dismayed when I heard where Fanny Adams Vintage was located as the premises used to be another divine shop.  So my dismay was two fold.  Priddy in Pink had not had enough support and was gone, to be shopped in no more (although I couldn't really afford to shop there unless the sale was on) and then the feeling that Fanny might go the same way.  But what with the reuse, recycle, vintage thing that is sweeping the nation, Fanny appears to be busier than Jane can manage.  She doesn't get chance to sit at her sewing machine, it's going to be a tough juggling act for her but I reckon she'll do it.
I googled Fanny Adams when you could only buy the clothes at "Cardigan Parties" in peoples houses, a bit like Pampered Chef.  Oh how I wanted one of those parties or to go to one of those parties.  I just knew I would adore the creations.  What popped up on my screen was definately not the Fanny Adams I was after.  A woeful tale of a little girl who was murdered and chopped up into bits was all I could find.  Absolutely not the joyous Fanny Adams Vintage, no at all!
Velvet hair slide

























It's not just clothes you know, there are handmade corsages by The Handmade Corset Company, one day I'll have saved enough for one of those corsets.  Oh to have a waist!  There are homey things like tea cosies and fabric padded boxes, hair slides with velvet pansies, patchwork quilts, handbags and some haberdashery which is such a draw for me.
bonkers housecoat
Jane was fabulous the last time I went in.  I took this old housecoat and she gave me some ideas to work with.  Now I'm struggling to decide between the options of what it could be where as before I was a bit dazzled by the fabric and couldn't get passed it being a bonkers housecoat.
I also wore a dress which I have taken forever to make and still haven't finished.  I bought some gorgeous ribbon trim to put around the hem and Jane gave me some stunning green lining from a 1960's dress.  Perfect to finish the sleeves, just what I needed.  I'll pop some photo's on here when it is finally completed.
Cloche

I love spending time at Fanny's, this crush is going to cost me a bomb as everytime I go in I spy something that really needs to live with me.   This hat is the latest thing, made from a vintage pattern by Jane's own hands.  I saw it.  I put it on my head and there it stayed till I left, you see it was raining and silk velvet and 1920's flowers really don't care for the rain, otherwise I'd have continued to wear it till bedtime.  It's not really a month of May hat but come Autumn and I'll be dressing in things that only go with the hat.  Oh help, I am lost.
ps I gave Fanny that hanger from my last post.
pps.  just spotted my hat in the top right of Angela's photo.  So cute!

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