Visiting Textielfabrique

I recently discovered this super cool sustainable initiative called 'textielfabrique' and ow my god I was sold. Such a beautiful philosophy and beautiful sustainable fabrics and yarns they have. I discovered that the shop/atelier was just a town away from me! I got in touch en visited the interesting woman behind this initiative designer, producer and teacher, Maaike Gottschal. We talked a lot about our experiences in natural dyeing and also investigated possibility's in the future. She also showed me her atelier/shop. It was so nice that I couldn't leave without buying myself something to experiment with... can't wait to find time to try this! In short it was a wonderful trip, let's have more trips like these!

A sneak peak in her atelier/shop. Showing wool she recently dyed herself by hand using walnut and cochenille

The 100% organic Indigo Starterkit I couldn't resist buying.

Having a glimpse inside the box reveals a lot of interesting things including marbles! Can't wait to try it!

 

Opening Secret Gardens at CBK

Yesterday I had a very nice opening of the exhibition and shop with the theme "de geheime tuin" (translates into "secret garden") which also had my collection "leaves Impression". This all happened at the CBK in Rotterdam. It was a great opening with lot's of people, lot's of flowers from the charming flower-girls walking around and lot's and lot's of talent that was displayed! Got in touch with some very interesting people! Some of them where Renske Versluijs, Barbara Smit, Madeleen Bloemendaal, Jörgen Smit, Susanne Vuyk and Niels van Hout , they are all worth checking out!  I went home not only very inspired and happy but also with a cute little gift envelope containing some sunflower-seeds.

Secret Gardens

This week I've been a busy bee perfecting my "Leaves Impression" collection for a new and improved Artshop and exhibition of the Centre of Art of Rotterdam. They exist for 30 years and celebrate this by having a wonderful exhibition called "de Geheime Tuin" which translates into "Secret Gardens". The very Exciting thing is that I will be featuring most of my "leaves Impression" Collection in their new and improved shop! If you are in Rotterdam and have time on the 5th of April around 17.30, come and join me for a drink at this amazing opening! Check their website for more details.

 

Dutch Designweek WNF auction

During the dutch designweek in Eindhoven there is a special auction for WNF.  

WNF Asked me to donate a scarf from the Leaves Impression Collection to this wonderful auction, and off course I said yes to this very good initiative! I've selected a beautiful scarf of the eucalyptus dyed collection Leaves Impression that also featured in the issue of Libelle Balance before!  

This WNF auction is filled with beautiful products that are made with good materials or have interesting subjects that stimulate consciousness or are made from recycled materials. 

Most important of all is that all the income of this auction will go to a good cause, so we all donate to the good cause! What nicer than that? Well, you also have a chance to start bidding on my scarf for a very reduced price! So check out the website, make a beautiful bid of at least 50 euro, and maybe you are the lucky owner of this beautiful hand dyed antung silk scarf! And next to that the highest bidder will also receive next to the scarf a personal letter from me explaining the whole dyeproces, a businesscard and a beautiful card from the Leaves Impression Collection. You can also start bidding on E-bay so be quick to try to be the highest bidder on this beauty because the auction closes at the 30th of October 18.00! Here is a direct link to this beautiful scarf on the auction website. And don't forget, it's all for a good cause!

eco dye workshop in Tilburg!

There is a unique chance to follow one of my workshops! There are a few places left for a workshop dyeing and printing with eucalyptus, It is in Tilburg (Holland). In this course I will teach how to dye different colors with just leaves water and a little love. You're also getting the chance to print with the leaves and you also get lot's of tips and tricks from me! I will give the workshop in English and in Dutch.

So grab this chance and follow this amazing workshop I'm giving! It is going to take place on the 27th of October, so be quick! Hope to see you there!

See more info and how to enroll on this page!

Libelle Balance meets Leaves Impression.

There is a nice article in the dutch magazine Libelle Balance showing a scarf from the collection "Leaves Impression" with an explanation of the process involved in making the lovely leaf prints. Enjoy!

staindress premiere!

After working long hours and having had great help by lot's of sweet people, my newest project "Staindress" is a fact. It had it's premiere at the wonderful event Fashion clash in Maastricht.  The Project "Staindress" is all about creating things that are interesting from simple materials, and most of all I wanted to convey that "mistakes" can make things more beautiful instead of ruining them.

I designed and constructed the dress myself with (much needed) help from my lovely mother (as I have never made clothes before!). The material of the dress is a high quality organic silk. Which I silkscreened with a homemade PH value changing silkscreening ink. I made this ink from inviromentally friendly materials that are used in the food industry.

To really understand and see the effect happening, I decided that this had to be captures in a short film which would also was an opportunity to really create the fairytale like atmosphere I had in mind when I made the first sketch on paper. This made me search for a professional to help me with this. I found a real professional in Rico Sohilait who has a company named "laid back productions". I wrote a script, found locations to use as filmset and Rico decided to help me. Which he did wonderfully! This video really portraits what I had in mind, so thank you Rico and his assistant Robert Jan! This video needed also unique music, the music is composed by my new love! Jolle Roelofs who is a great Composer and pianist.

Below the video showing the transformation of this dress and underneath some photo's of the performance and also of the presentation in Maastricht

The photo's are made by Jolle Roelofs and the Film by Laid back productions, enjoy!
PS: If you want to use the photo's for your blog or something else, that's cool but please remember to mention the project and a link! Thankss!


next blogpost is all about, "the making of staindress" plus the people that helped to make it reality!


staindress from wieteke opmeer on Vimeo.

New developments!

After having a busy couple of weeks and a small trip to get away from everything for a few days I'm back at work again! 

I'm filling my days lately with a very interesting project. I am doing interesting experiments with lovely organic silks and home made formula's to create interesting effects on fabric. I can't tell everything yet but I can tell that it is promising to become a very interesting en beautiful project! This all I am doing for the event "Fashion Clash" in Maastricht. This event will take place in the beginning of June this year, For the exact dates check out their website. The organization for this project did a nice interview with me which you can read through this link (very Happy with it!) 

 

Next to this I have become a columnist for the website Duurzamelifestyle.nl, A very nice dutch website what writes about everything that has to do with incorporating sustainability in daily life. You can read my first column about my work as a designer (written in dutch) through this link, so enjoy!   

And of course in the last blogpost I was giving away a limited edition art catalog from a communal project I did. The person who got this is Dorie! So Dorie if you want to send me an email containing your postal address then I can send you your gift as soon as possible! 

Below some pictures from my dyeing adventures for the upcoming fashion project!

sharing news and capturing sun

I have some great news to share with you all!

I applied for the fashion event in Maastricht some time ago called "fashionclash" because the creator of this interesting event encouraged me to apply and well, that I did. I applied for the exhibition part with my graduation project "zaaisieraden" from the collection "seeds of wonder" and with an exciting new project I wanted to make now for a while. I thought this was the perfect chance to let this get it's premiere, and guess what! Both projects got selected! I am over the moon and a bit nervous, the fashionclash event will be in June. So I've ordered fabrics and I am going to start very quickly with the first experiments for this new and experimental project. I will keep you up to date and uncover later on what this mysterious project is about!

next to that ,

A stylist for a dutch magazine, found me on the internet and contacted me, she wanted to use my work in a fashion photoshoot where every item was eco! I loved the concept she explained to me and that resulted in that I send her as soon as I could some scarfs of my collection "leaves Impression". The nicest thing is that the photoshoot was in Miami! I am very very proud, my darlings travelled around the world and came back to me after their adventures still as beautiful as before. The magazine will appear in July and of course I will keep you up to date when it will appear exactly!

I was a bit jealous off my lucky scarfs that got to travel all the way to sunny Miami. Luckely I could capture some sun because I got the chance to dye a big eco wool blanket with eucalyptus for a client, it turned out beautiful! Enjoy some photo's of the process of dyeing and I've also added some photo's of the end result! And before I forget Let me thank my sweet mother who helped me with this big heavy project! Without her I couldn't have made this beauty!

And here the result after a long day of work and a lot of patience! The result is a large eco woolen blanket with a scattered leaf print of eucalyptus. It's on it's way to the lucky buyer!

freezing spring for later

It's spring! My garden is already blooming like crazy, filled with snowdrops and flowers of a blue purple kind of crocus. They always suprise me by popping up while I think it is still winter. They look so nice, but after a few days of rain most of the crocus flowers looked a bit sad and wilted, so I decided to pluck them with help of my mother (the hands in the pictures are from my lovely mother) and use them for a dyebath in the future. I decided to freeze them to use them for the iceflower dye method to obtain the most of color from these beautiful flowers. So in the future you will see the result of this experiment!

Het is lente! Mijn tuin staat nu al vol met bloemen, gevuld met sneeuwklokjes en bloemen van een blauw paarse soort krokus. Ze verbazen me altijd door op te duiken terwijl ik denk dat het nog winter is. Ze waren zo mooi, maar na een paar dagen regen zagen de meeste van de krokus bloemen er een beetje triest en verwelkt uit, dus besloot ik om ze te plukken met hulp van mijn moeder (je ziet haar handen in de foto's) en ze te gebruiken voor een verfbad in de toekomst. Ik besloot om ze te bevriezen om ze te gebruiken voor de Iceflower dye methode zodat ik de meeste van kleur van deze prachtige bloemen kan benutten. Dus in de toekomst ziet u het resultaat van dit experiment!