OVWSG 2023 Sale and exhibition (part 1)
Vacarious Shopping!!
In November, The local weavers and spinners guild in Ottawa Canada have there annual sale and exhibition (briefly interrupted by the pandemic but running again this year!) The sale is held int the Glebe Community Center, which started out its life as St. James Methodist Church, begun in 1914 and finished in 1924. In the 1970’s it was converted to its present function of community center and rental hall. We take over the hall on Friday after noon to mark out the booths, set up tables then the venders arrive to set up there booths.
we have booths with local guild members and other fiber artists selling there finished items or various sorts of supplies and equipment. We also have a guild coop booth, make and take tables, a demo area and the guild info booth.
There was a large team organizing the event and publicity was mostly on line this year. Ann is the best one to speak to that part of the sale if you are very curious. I was only busy with a few parts of preparations. My jobs are more during the sale, the main one is photo document the sale and to take shots that hopefully will be useful in next years publicity as well as to entice anyone on our guild face book group to come shopping at the show. (I spend a couple hours posting photos to the group on Saturday night after the first day of the sale, I only took 343 photos, but didn’t inflict all of them on the group I promises!
Lets take a look around the sale, We had two booths with felting and a few with fiber that may be of interest. lest start at the guild table, which has the door prize for the surveys, stickers while they last, the Canadian moose skein winder bags, and extras magazines surplus to our collection (2.00 each). (there are also name tags with silly or odd sheep for those who are working at the sale. you may spot them in various pictures.)
1) Font of flyer
2) the doors into the sale, let’s take a look inside
As you went through the doors the Guild info booth was to your Left, we tried to ask everyone to fill out a Survey to enter for the door prizes.
3) Guild table; Sheep name tags, survey slips, stickers for filling out the survey.
4) The door prizes for filling out the survey, which were drawn at the November guild meeting.
We were wanting to know how people found out about the sale (check our focus for advertising was working) and the aria that shoppers came from by asking for their postal code. This will let us check where most shoppers come from and see if there is a change from year to year. (Ann let me have fun with both the data enters and data analysis last time)
We also had a display of the Moose project bags,
5 )the 75th anniversary moose bags
And the Magazines that were extra to the guilds collection.
6) Magazines for sale
in front of the guild tables are the Demo area to the left,
7) Spinning and Weaving demo
8) Pine needle basket demo
9) Felting demo
The make take tables are on the right. This was a fun spot that let people try spinning (on a Mayonnaise lid spindle), weaving (on a small frame or on a tapestry loom) and wet felting (acorns).
10) a spinning lesson with Mayonnaise lid spindles
11) weaving on little frames
the Exhibition is in between Make and take table and the Demo area. The theme was “Safire” this year, which leads into our “Diamond” anniversary theme next year.
12) the exhibition
13) Molly’s Wet felted Vessel
I suspect you will be interested in this one which was made by Molly Underhill. I think she said it was inspired by geologic core samples.
The guild had 3 wheels for sale which were displayed near the exhibition. the Louet S60 sold extremely quickly. Which left the CPW (a fast spinning wheel used for production spinning and the beautiful little Tyrol Spinning wheel . another wheel was dropped off but after more inspection it has a few repairs needed. It may need to have a spa day with Deborah, the OVWSG rental coordinator. (There are advantages to in person guilds but the commute to our blog or an on line guild is so much faster!)
14)The wheels
Canadian Production Wheel (CPW), a double drive wheel with tilt tension and a cast mettle footman.
Tiny Tyrol Spinning wheel, screw tension, peg for flyer, Slow ratio, large mettle insert for orifice. There is a larger but very similar wheel in the Museum collection of Canadian Museum of history (previously M. of Civilization)
15) Size comparison of CPW and Tyrol wheels
We had a small exhibit on the theme Safire this year, which leads into our Diamond anniversary theme next year.
Lets have a quick tour around the booths, starting with the co op booth. This allows guild members who have only a few things to sell or those with jobs at the sale who cant have a booth participate in the sale.
16) Co-op booth
I hope this give you a suggestion of the diversity of the guild members work.
Since we are already on page 24 I think I should save the rest of the booths for the next post! Are you already shopping vicariously? (Save a bit of your Vicarious shopping money for the booths from the next post!!)
1) Sharkboy standing in his project beg attached to Jan’s black walker with her husband (and the back of my Grey Kea Soul, I am sure you were expecting I possessed a black soul!).
2) Stone Spindle Farm Booth; with alpaca yarn, fibre and hats. The vendor is hanging up suit cages full of low-grade alpaca to provide the birds as nesting material.
3) baskets are strewn artistically under a few trees with an E-Bike near the front with pannier baskets.
4) A quick overview of part of the vendors.
5) digging for colours in balls of hand died Superwash Marino fibre.
6) More fibre from the Black Lamb booth.
7) Beautiful project bags and purses
8) Moose Hill Woodworks had lots of fibre tools, all beautifully made. (Yes, I got another spindle of a type I didn’t have.)
9) Odd new spindle, I was trying it with some of the new extremely soft Finn wool I also purchased. The back of the tag says Yellow Birch, 1.3oz/39g
10) Beaux Arbres booth had basketry
11) This booth had fibre samples you could feel (the bags of them are behind the table.)
12) This is the side table of the same booth with the fibre. Check out her fine ponies!
13) Fin roving is actually semi-worsted the vendor has her own mill!!! I have never felt such a soft Finn sheep. 
14) This was an ingenious support spindle case.
15) The booth the support spindle bag came from had more spindles and lots of rolags.
16) A couple of booths had yarn for weaving and knitting.
17) This Was Susan Allen’s Booth with weaving yarns, I think this was a Cotton or a Cottolin that Ann was looking at.
18-19) Janet’s Basketry 
20) Janet’s booth, she is just finishing setup as the first customers arrive
21) Shark Boy standing in his project bag, attached to my walker.
22) Shark Boy checks out the special parking for Mer-people (and those with walkers) as we arrive at UCV.
23) The entrance buildings of Upper Canada village.
