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!

 

New Atelier!

Long time no blog! A lot has changed in the mean time. I've moved to a beautiful atelier-livingspace with my love in The Hague (a city near the sea). The surroundings and my atelier inspire me a lot, I've started a lot of new projects, soon more about that!  

working in my new atelier on exciting new projects

having a stroll with my love on the beach 

inspiring surroundings on just a bike ride from our new atelier and living space

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.

 

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!

I'm alive! And kicking!

It has been much to long ago that I posted something! So no excuses and let's just catch up with everything that happend! Because there has happend a lot! I haven't posted in a while because I started to illustrate a story written by my father that we will try to get published! Below some sketches, it is far from finised so these are sketches.

Het is veel te lang geleden dat ik iets gepost heb! Dus geen excuses en laat ik even vertellen over alles wat er in de tussentijd is gebeurd, want er is veel gebeurd! Ik heb een tijdje niet gepost omdat ik heel druk bezig was met het illustreren van een verhaal geschreven door mijn vader, dit gaan we proberen te laten uitgeven! Het is verre van af dus hieronder een aantal schetsen. 

Besides that I've been asked by the Textile Museum of Tilbrug (NL) to design and make a collection of ecodyed scarfes that they will be sell in the museumshop! So that's great news! In the same spirit I am going to give a workshop in october of this year at the Textile Museum where I will teach everything you need to know about how to dye with Eucalyptus, If you would like to join, you can register at this site here you can find more about what the program of the workshop is!

Hiernaast ben ik gevraagd om voor het Textiel Museum van Tilburg om een serie ecologisch geverfde sjaals te ontwerpen en maken die verkocht zullen worden vanaf het einde van het jaar in de winkel van het Textiel Museum. In hetzelfde kader ga ik in Oktober een workshop geven in Tilburg bij het Textiel Museum. Tijdens deze workshop van een dag behandel ik alles wat je moet weten over het verven met eucalyptus. Als je het leuk vind om hier aan mee te doen kun je je inschrijven via deze site. Hier kan je ook meer vinden over wat ik behandel tijdens deze workshopdag!  

I have also been invited by Museum de Paviljoens to showcase my sowing jewelry and picknickblanket at the event 100xSUMMERDESIGN Almere at sunday june 6! So that already upcoming sunday! Looking forward to that day! It's bound te be lot's of fun with all the designers. You can chat with everyone so if you have the chance come and visit! visit their site for more info about this day.

Ik ben ook uitgenodigd door Museum de Paviljoens om mijn Zaai Sieraden en mijn picknick kleed Kiem Kleed te laten zien in Almere op zondag 6 Juni tijdens de tentoonstelling 100xSUMMERDESIGN. Dus dat is al aankomende zondag! Ik heb zin in deze dag, het beloofd een hele leuke dag te worden met veel interessante ontwerpers waarvan er veel aanwezig zullen zijn op deze dag. Je kunt dan met veel ontwerpers praten dus als je dat ziet zitten moet je zeker even langs komen! Je kunt meer info vinden over deze dag op hun site. 

And also something very exciting! From the 24th till the 27th of June I will be selling a new eco product on which I am working hard now! It will be affordable and very much fun! The sales weekend will be during the graduation exhibition of the HKU in Utrecht. When that date is coming closer I will let you know more about that!

A bit further on the summer calender there will be a big exhibition where my work will be showed at an exhibition in Utrecht during 6 weeks in this summer. The exhibition is called "Steunkleur Groen" which translates into "Supporting Color Green" More about that exhibition later on!

I am also invited to very interesting project at the end of this year in Almere (NL) again. This is promises to become a very interesting project in which lot's of interesting eco oriented designers will show new work and me included!
So I haven't been sleeping! I will keep you all posted on new developments

En nog iets interessants is dat ik de 24ste tot en met de 27ste Juni een nieuw product zal gaan verkopen tijdens de afstudeer tentoonstelling van de HKU (Utrecht). Ik werk op dit moment hard om dit af te krijgen. Het word leuk en betaalbaar dus laat je verrassen! Als deze data dichterbij komt zal ik hierover ook meer vertellen. 

Nog iets later in de zomer is mijn werk te bewonderen gedurende 6 weken tijdens een tentoonstelling in de binnenstad van Utrecht genaamd "steunkleur Groen" waaraan allemaal interessante groen georiënteerde ontwerpers en kunstenaars deelnemen. Later daarover meer! 

Aan het einde van dit jaar ben ik weer te vinden in Almere. Hier ben ik uitgenodigd voor een interessant project over ecologie cradle to cradle enz. Dit word een interessante project waarin er nieuw werk te zien zal zijn van allerlei interessante ontwerpers en kunstenaars die werken met de natuur, waaronder ikzelf! Later hierover meer.

Zoals je wel gemerkt heb ben ik niet in slaap gevallen, ik ga weer posten zodra er weer nieuwe leuke vorderingen zijn!