Part 2
Let’s take a quick look around the rest of the OVWSG 2023 Guild Sale. I hope you save some of your Vicarious shopping money for the rest of the booths!! So far you have only seen the Guild booths and the exhibition (OVWSG 2023 Sale and Exhibition (part 1) ).
The booth next door to the Co-op booth is one of the local Felters, Wendo Van Essen.
17) Wendo’s Booth
She makes extremely whimsical hanging figures, pin cushions, and pictures. You may recognize her felt from Fiberfest in Almonte where I also sneak up on her and take pictures! I am sure you would enjoy stopping and chatting with her, but I have to drag you away so you can see the rest of the show!
18) Les Belles Bouclettes (Isabelle Perdigal)
As we move on to the next booth, you will find Mohair, In fibre, top, yarn and even socks. As I hope you can see the lustre of the fibre as the sun hits it in the afternoon. Those blue purple colours make me want to create a wild sky over an untrustworthy cold sea.
19) Judy Kavanagh and Don Haines
Judy and Don are woodworkers as well as weavers and spinners. Judy is well known for her beautiful spindles and decorative rigid hedles for Scandinavian band weaving. Don has been making beautifully weaving accessories and now a loom to hold a rigid heddle or tablet/Cards for weaving. He also has tools for spinners too, did you see those doffers? Take a look at Judy’s tapestry of canoeing at her family cottage, she also made and is selling the loom she is demonstrating the tapestry on! She also had patterns to make those lovely mits. Lastly, she also has dyed fibre and braided roving or top.
20) Studio 3 (Jean Down & Roberta Murrant)
Jean and Roberta are local weavers who always have amazing patterns and colours in their booth. The cards are mostly miniature overshot patterns woven in warp the size of sewing thread. (I did buy 3 more this year.) Once you have picked out your scarf, take a few more steps and check out the next booth.
21) Top of the Whorl Spindles
This is a new booth to the show and had a large selection of spindles. There were also bowls to use with support spindles and cases with ingenious lids that turn into supports for the spindle within. The glass whirls caught the light and had colourful shafts. There was a support spindle made from a porcelain drawer pull that cot my eye.
22) Wööl, emporium de laine
This booth had Fleeces that were for sale at Reinbeck (a big fibre festival in the States). These were fleeces that won awards at that show. They were too nice for me to pass up and I bought a bit of fibre from a couple of the bags, Teeswater and grey Mohair. There were kits including basketry, as well as a number of natural dies including Indigo.
22.1) Mohair and Teeswater
23) Luna
As you pull yourself away from the fibre and turn to the next booth, you will find woodworking, weaving and felting. The yarn bowls had this amazing glow that I had trouble catching in a photo. I have to tug you along to the next booth so I apologize, I can’t let you linger longer.
24) Fab Fibre Two (Jean Sharp & Bernadette Quade)
Both Jean and Bernadette, who were sharing the booth, had handspun yarn. Bernadette also had batts that work well for felting as well as spinning. Jean also had both knitting and woven finished items. Check out the fabulous colours in the shawl. After you have picked out a skaine or two, lets move to the next booth.
25) Handweaving by Janet Whittam
In the next booth you will find Janet Wittam, a local weaver/Basket maker from south of Ottawa. She has been weaving for decades and makes amazing wraps, shirts, jackets, ponchos, rugs and baskets. I enjoyed taking a basket weaving class from her many years ago. She had us go for a walk along her country road collecting vines and other basket making bits, then we made a basket from local materials. It was a lot of fun and i would recommend it if you can catch one of her courses! if you turn and look across the way you will spot the next booth to visit.
26) Sami Lemperger Artistry
This vendor was new this year, she had these subtle coloured wraps. She had a lovely display, which she changed through the show. I like the long fringe on the blue one, and the green one had interesting colour changes that looked like water. Compared to Janet, she is a vary new weaver but she is making such elegant wraps with interesting colour changes. i look foreword to seeing what she has next year! Oh i think you are already distracted by the next boot so we should continue the tour.
27) Beaux Arbres Basketry
We have a couple of Basket weavers in the guild but the others are weavers who also do basketry. Michael Peterson has been a basket maker for 30 years. He is Inspired by historical basket techniques and locally available materials. He also teaches basketry classes, which i hear are also lots of fun. He is vary knowledgeable bout the history of baskets and local materials used to make them. He can also tell you about how he has repaired old baskets. Michael is lots of fun to chat with, but we should not linger to long or you will no see the rest of the show!
28) Sprout Handwoven
Moving on past the baskets you will see this booth, with tea towels, dog scarves, bags and lovely shawls. I particularly liked the shawl in blue and brown checks at the front of the booth. i hope you have selected your tea towel, they were going quickly!! Did you notice the handwoven bottle bag, it would make a perfect bag to carry a spindle and some fiber when your out and about.
29) Wayside Weeds and Wool (Amanda Carrigan)
Amanda has a natural die garden, where she grows her die pants and then make them into dies. She dies yarn and knits beautiful mitts and gloves. She also sells kits so you can knit your own mitts and gloves. You can see how the colours look in the late afternoon sunshine. Did you get the kit or just buy one of the pairs of mits or gloves? Oh, i bet you just spotted the next booth, so lets move on!

30) Felt by Molly
Yes its Molly Underhill! Molly is another one of the felters in the Ottawa guild. She has a booth with a diverse selection of pictures and other felted items. I love the felted flower framed between two layers of glass. In the afternoon the light shifted, you can see how it made the flower glow. It was quite amazing. As a former picture framer i was impressed with the double glass and frame. it showed the delicacy of the felt but also protected it. I am sorry, but again I have to drag you away or you will never see all the booths!
31) Carmen Deschênes, Lise Susin-Horth, & Elisabeth Davy
This booth had fibre batts, felt and handwovens by Carmen, Lise and Elisabeth. This was a fun booth when they were not chatting enthusiastically with customers they were chatting with each other! The wild patterns were eye catching but i kept coming back to look at a couple of the simple pieces. it was fun to watch the large E-Spinner, did you see the size of that Orifice?
32) Mapi Creations
As you pull yourself away from the previous booth, I am sure all the colourful batts and braids of fibre will catch your attention in the next one! The batts kept trying to entice me into buying one or two. The light turquoise batt kept making me think of ice burgs. (It was much too early to think about ice!!!) Maybe you will find a braid of top or roving that will call to you?
33) Off the Loom (Liliane McKennirey)
Liliane has been a weaver for a long time and is known for her recycling of fur coats into new items. I have one of her throws and it is lovely, soft, and warm. The through pillows are so soft but i fear i would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. You should ask her about the steps involved in working with an old fur coat to prepare it to be woven into a new coat, through or pillow.
34) Lin en ville
We have finally reached the last booth (back beside the co-op booth where we started). Here there were fabulous tea towels and lovely soft scarfs. I purchased one of the tea towels last year, the thread count is vary high and it is beautifully woven. the scarves were soft and drappy. i hope you got one of the tea towels, they sold very quickly!
I wanted to share with you what I had found at the sale, technically I had purchased the moose bags before, but I was demoing the second moose bag and they made a nice background for the photo. The Combs were listed for sale online and were dropped off at the sale, but I did pay for them when they arrived, so technically I did buy them there too. I wonder if you can see where I found all the great finds?
35) My shopping
I hope you have enjoyed wandering through the guild sale and you found some fabulous acquisitions. If you are near Ottawa during the first weekend in November 2024 we will have another sale and it will be the Ottawa Guilds’ 75th anniversary year with an exhibition to celebrate it!
PS; i am curious, what would you have bought and which booth would you have gone back to chat and look through more?
Like this:
Like Loading...