Ann Wendell's Weblog

Seattle’s Vintage Wedding Fair – All in the Details!

Ann Wendell — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:12:20 +0000

I am very excited to be participating in this year’s 2nd Annual Vintage Wedding Fair, taking place this coming Saturday – May 14, 2011 from 11AM-6PM, at Ghost Gallery on Capitol Hill! I’ll be showing my Pin-A-Posies (Corsages/Boutonnieres made from fabric or paper flowers, adorned with charms, vintage buttons and jewelery bits, nestled in a vase made from vintage hollow silverware and worn on the lapel) and my Libation Charms (personalized stemware charms so you never lose your glass of bubbly.)

The theme of this year’s Fair is “All in the Details!” There will be vintage-inspired vendors showcasing their hair accessories, jewelry, reconstructed bridal gowns, vintage dresses for attendees, flowers, paper goods, hair and make-up artist resources, sweet treats and more. All to help you complete your wonderful Vintage-style Wedding!

There will be products available for purchase, as well as opportunities to book photography sessions, hair and make-up appointments and more.

Frederick & Nelson Tea in Bothell

Ann Wendell — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:32:21 +0000

Another fabulous F&N Tea, this time at the Chateau Retirement Community in Bothell. Tea and treats, vintage fashion show, books and “I’d Still Rather be Shopping at Frederick & Nelson bumper stickers”, memorabilia and memories to share. KIXI radio will be on hand broadcasting live! Call (425) 485-1145 for reservations.

Frederick & Nelson Tea
Chateau at Bothell Landing
17543 102nd Avenue NE
Bothell, WA 98011
3:00 pm Sunday May 15, 2011

Frederick & Nelson – I Remember When…

Ann Wendell — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:12:34 +0000

Join us as the Frederick & Nelson Tearoom returns!

The first of two F&N themed events I’ll be doing for the Chateau Retirement Centers and local communities this month is tomorrow – Friday May 6th. We’ll be recreating the Tearoom complete with Walt’s Chicken Salad and a Fashion Show of vintage clothing and hats from F&N. As always, there will be memorabilia tables, my book available for sale, and plenty of time for sharing memories.

Tomorrow’s event is at the Chateau at Valley Center in Renton starting at 2:00pm. Call (425) 251-6677 for more information.

Meet me at the Square! The Seattle Square.

Ann Wendell — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:43:24 +0000

For the last couple of Saturdays my husband and I have set up shop in Occidental Square…in Pioneer Square…for Seattle Square. That’s a lot of squares! It’s a new Saturday Market with a curated selection of local vendors offering crafts, accessories, apparel, and housewares, as well as vintage items and amazing mobile food vendors. Add in tunes from local DJs, spontaneous boccie ball games, remote controlled racing potted plants, and a girl hula hooping her way through nursing school and you’ve got a party!

Originally, I just went to support my husband (Tony Hicks of Tinplate Studios.) …and to squander our earnings on pot stickers and homemade ice cream, but I happened to take a few of my local history books with me and I’m glad I did. Both visitors and locals perused my pictorial histories of the Ravenna neighborhood and the lost, but not forgotten, Frederick & Nelson. Besides sales, I got some great new stories!

Besides our usual wares of Steampunk Wonders and Bodgery – ray guns, potted anomalies, odd artifacts, and libation charms – we’ll have a few new items this week. Tony will have archival Giclee prints available of his Raven and Cetacean Airship, and new ray gun holsters made by Mac McGowen of Steambaby, and I will have necklaces featuring small silver framed vintage images of local points of interest.

We hope to see you at the Square!

Frederick & Nelson Talk at McClure School 7:00pm 1/27/10 for the Queen Anne Historical Society

Ann Wendell — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:44:52 +0000

Tonight I’ll be joining the members of the Queen Anne Historical Society for an evening of tea, cookies, and reminiscences on Frederick & Nelson. I’ll have a table of memorabilia (including my great silver teapot find!), will read excerpts from my book, and will invite the audience to share their memories. Books (and merchandise – you know you need a bumper sticker) will be on sale before and after the presentation. Please come join us!

McClure Middle School
Library (main floor, North entrance)
1915 1 AV W Seattle, WA 98119
7:00pm

Not One…Not Two…But Three Blogs?!?!

Ann Wendell — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:02:30 +0000

Because I’ve been doing sooooo well with the two blogs I have, I decided to start another one! No…it wasn’t really my decision…although my comment was the impetuous for it. Here’s what happened: a few weeks ago I was cruising around the ‘net looking for art related opportunities for my lovely, talented husband and I happened upon a notice of RFPs being accepted for an upcoming show at the Kirkland Art Center called Steambot. It said they were seeking individuals and collaborative groups to create interactive artwork for an exhibition in the KAC Gallery during October and November of 2010 and that it would feature work that combines both current and 1900’s-era technology. Woohoo, thought I, sounds steamy to me! So I wrote to Cable Griffith, the Exhibition Director and all-round charming guy, and long story short he came and talked with our local Steampunk Social Club and 6 of us decided to form a team and applied. The application was due on the same day the inaugural Seattle Steamcon started, just last Friday, so much gnashing of gears was heard but we managed to get everything ready and in.

Our idea is to create a Steampunk version of the Penny Arcade at Seattle’s Luna Park, the largest amusement park on the west coast at the turn of the century. And, acceptance be damned, we are already at work on designing our amazing machines and exhibits. So…when I found a blog post about a blog post about a Steampunked arcade machine (albeit one more 1980s than 1880s) I got all excited and sent it off to the rest of the team and Gary decided we needed our own…blog that is. And here it is – Seattle Steam Group.

Private Clubs Taste on a Nouveau Poor Budget

Ann Wendell — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:35:52 +0000

My dear friend and past editor Julie Pheasant-Albright and her lovely co-author Celeste Smith are having a book signing tonight for Images of America: Private Clubs of Seattle at the Swedish Cultural Center. As the Swedish Club states in their newsletter, “At what other bookstore can you get a drink?” And I would add, a good strong drink at a very reasonable price at that! And then there’s the view! Best in the city bar none. And of course the opportunity to mingle not only with the hoi polloi but those select few actually pictured in the book not to mention the charming authors themselves.

I have yet to buy my copy and am eager to get my hands on one. As mentioned previously in this blog, the Woman’s Century Club (and one of its prominent members, Mayor Bertha Landes) is playing a major role in the graphic novel that my husband Tony Hicks and I are currently working on (albeit a Steampunk tinged version of said.) Source material – yea!!

7:00pm tonight at 1920 Dexter Ave N – see you there!

Electromagnetic Frequencies of Seattle Women Authors

Ann Wendell — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:47:33 +0000

On Friday May 15^th at 12:00 noon I’ll be at the Woman’s Century Club for their event Seattle Women Authors Book Event. The Club is presenting a High Tea and hosting four Seattle women whose writing deals with historical topics. I’m joining Julie Pheasant-Albright, author of Historic Ballard and Private Clubs of Seattle, Celeste Smith, co-author of Private Clubs of Seattle, and Helene Gabel Ryan, author of Hakujin.

We’ll be in the Deluxe Building…home now of the Museum of the Mysteries and famously haunted. I wonder if we’ll be given Electromagnetic Frequency Detectors such as the ones used on the ghost tours or if I’ll have to bring my husband’s Chamber of Spectral Concentration or the Prism of the Veil. He and I are working on a illustrated novel about a Neo-Victorian Muldar and Scully set in a Steampunk tinged 1880s Seattle. The female character is a Spiritualist and I’m having fun researching the practitioners of the time.

Friday May 15th, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Woman’s Century Club-Harvard Exit Theatre

807 E. Roy

Seattle, WA

www.womanscenturyclub.org

RSVP 206.322.9565

president@womanscenturyclub.org

Frederick & Nelson Tearoom Rises Again…in Lynnwood

Ann Wendell — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:34:23 +0000

The look and feel of the iconic Frederick & Nelson Tearoom will be recreated at 2pm Wednesday, May 6th at Chateau Pacific in Lynnwood. Special guests will include local author Ann Wendell who will read selections from her new book Images of America: Frederick & Nelson. Accompanying Ann will be Lamont McDonald, longtime F&N employee and inventor of the Frango Mint machine. Lamont, Ann, Chateau residents and members of the public who previously reserved a space for the event will have an opportunity to share their own memories of Frederick & Nelson and the Tearoom while they enjoy Walt’s Chicken Salad sandwiches, Frango mint desserts and Tearoom coconut cake. Chateau Pacific residents will model or display vintage fashions, many of which were purchased at the legendary department store from the 1930s to the 1970s. An extensive collection of historic F&N memorabilia, ranging from a doorman’s hat to a 1916 catalogue will be in display.

This event sold out in record time with 80 people attending the Tea and another 70 on a waiting list. But don’t fret! Due to the popularity of these events I’ll will be joining the Chateau community again in June (date TBA) for a Frederick & Nelson Tea to celebrate the opening of their new facility Chateau St. Laurent in Bothell. This event will be open to the public and will feature a fashion show from a Bothell boutique. Stay tuned!

See You at the Fair! (The Olympia Book and Author Fair Of Course!)

Ann Wendell — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:28:26 +0000

This evening and tomorrow I am venturing down to the fair city of Olympia to participate in the Olympia Book and Author Fair . It’s one of those events that came a bit out of left field seeing as, on the whole, I have the Seattleite’s obliviousness about the “South Sound.” However, at last year’s InfoCamp I met a lovely librarian (are there any other kind?), Kelsey Smith of the Olympia Timberland Library and she graciously invited me to participate.

I’ve even got a mention in the article in The Olympian . My favorite part is this –

“There are three professors with very substantive books,” Ingle said, along with history writers such as Ann Wendell, who penned “Frederick & Nelson (Images of America: Washington).”

implication being, at least to my hyper-sensitive author brain, “we’ve got some serious writers coming and then there’s this Wendell chick who natters on about Frangos and Tearooms.” Harumpf…who’s gonna have the fun table?!?!? I am!!!! Right? OK…I want all you F&N fans turning out in force, peering through your fetching little hats with veils, and delivering coconut cake to the waiting throngs. I knew I could count on you.