Textiel Festival Leiden

During the textile festival in Leiden I will be at a more than beautiful location, the Hortus Botanicus Leiden (one of the oldest botanical gardens in the Netherlands). In this garden I will have a little market stall nested in between the beautiful plants en flowers of this amazing garden. I will showcase and sell my handmade textile oriented items.

I am packing knitting needles made from branches of pruned fruit trees handmade by my loving father, crochet hooks I made from different kinds of wood, needles I made from hawthorns, beautiful woolen yarn hand carded and hand spun by my loving mother. So a real family business :-)

And maybe even more exciting, the Hortus Botanicus Leiden let me use some of their pruning wood of trees from this unique garden. I transformed them into beautiful handmade limited edition crochet hooks and buttons. All these items and more will be for sale from wednesday to saturday (13-16 may) in the botanical gardens of Leiden and afterwards the items will of course be available online through my etsy shop.

Hope to see you at the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden for a nice and serene walk through the gardens and of course a glance at my handmade items! Check out here how you can get to the botanical gardens.

Hortus Botanicus Leiden

Sometimes it seems that wishes are granted, and fairy tales seem to come true. This is how I could best describe what I have experienced.

The oldest botanical garden of the Netherlands is located in Leiden (Hortus botanicus Leiden) and is celebrating it's founding 425 years ago (you are reading it correctly!). -check out their site here- My attention was drawn to their notification that one of their trees had to be cut down. As you all know botanical gardens always have unique specimens of all kinds of trees and plants.

 

 

I was in a courages mood and contacted them. I complemented them on their beautiful achievement (425 years and still standing strong) and also found some extra courage to ask them what they where going to do with the branches of this special tree. I send them pictures of my handmade crochet hooks, hawthorn needles and knitting needles. I ended my mail with the note I would love to make new items from those branches.

Against all expectations they wrote back that they loved my work and told me they where going to participate in a textile craft festival. They continued that my work would be an amazing asset to the selected artists invited to exhibit and sell items in their gardens during these textile art days in may.

They mentioned there was wood left from the tree they had cut down and invited me to come and pick out what I would need to make new work from their special tree. I was blown away, this was a dream come true! We agreed on a date I would visit. I wrote back that I wished to come a bit earlier to be able to walk through their amazing gardens and ancient glass houses. They told me they where closed for the public at the moment I would visit them, and noted that they would gladly let me wander around on my own during my visit.....

The day came, and there I was.. feeling like Alice in wonderland walking in awe through these amazing gardens and glass houses filled with the most unique and beautiful plants and trees in.

 

 

After spending an hour of wandering, indulging my senses and photographing I decided it was time to start collecting the wood I would need for my project. They also recently had to trim down another unique tree so there was lot's of choice.

At the end of the day I was invited in to have a cup of tea in the library (filled with plant oriented books and archives).

  

I left with two bags filled with the most beautiful wood and my heart filled with the most beautiful memories of what I had experienced that day.  I can't wait to go back with bags filled with all sorts of beautiful textile oriented items to sell in may! 

limited edition extra large hawthorn needles

I've wanted to make these beauty's for a long time now but i couldn't find the time with all kinds of projects on my mind (which I'll share with you later on). Because the regular hawthorn needles all of a sudden sold out (yeah!) i realized i had to find some time to finish the limited edition. And here they proudly are, my newest finished product. Made from the largest thorns from the may-tree. Looking a little different from the smaller regular hawthorn needles, which where one color, these needles have the unique quality of having a darker colored tip. The needles are longer in size. They are also stronger which makes them great for the coarser textile crafts. I could only make a few of these beauty's because the largest thorns are a rare find. So if you would love one these beauty's to complement your sewing equipment, be quick!

beautiful 'thank-you card'

It's always wonderful to get positive feedback from costumers. But I've never expected to receive such a wonderful 'thank-you card' from someone who got my wooden needles as a gift!  This one deserves a special place on my desk!

Interview in Trouw

Voor iedereen die vandaag of gisteren de krant Trouw doorbladerden kon het vast niet ontgaan zijn. Er stond een groot interview met mij in het katern duurzaamheid & natuur. Ik was erg vereerd dat de getalenteerde Maaike Veldman mij vond via internet en graag een interview wilde afnemen. Ik ben ook verrast dat het zo'n mooi artikel is geworden. Breed uitgemeten met allerlei foto's van projecten en producten. De grootste foto is van de jurk van het project Staindress. Voor degene die erg nieuwsgierig zijn geworden naar het verhaal achter deze opvallende jurk/verschijning kun je hier meer lezen over dit project. En daarnaast waren er nog foto's van mijn nieuwste collectie handgemaakte Haaknaalden van gevonden hout, en handgemaakte houten naalden gemaakt van meidoornstekels.


All of you that opened the national dutch newspaper Trouw yesterday or today must have given it a glance. There was a big interview concerning me and my work. I was honored to be contacted by the talented journalist Maaike Veldman. Who found me through the internet and wanted to interview me. After a long and interesting conversation with her I was pleasantly surprised to find such a big interview including several of my projects. Under which the notable dress from the project Staindress, for whom is curious about this project you can read more here. Also included where several items of my newest collection containing handmade wooden needles and handmade crochet needles made from found twigs.

NEW Knitting needles from branches

For some time now I have been working with my beloved father on a new product. Knitting Needles made from branches.

These knitting needles are made from pruning wood of different kind of trees.

The trees used have an ideal wood, but is only cut for pruning. The tree has better growth and fruit trees give more fruit after pruning. Pruning occurs yearly to improve mostly fruit trees. So no trees where cut down for these wooden knitting needles! Due to this, this product is very sustainable.

After pruning, the branches are hand selected to mach each other by size.

They are stripped of bark en hand sanded to make them smooth enough for knitting and to keep as much detail as possible.

Afterwards they are treated with a little bit of natural beeswax to preserve the wood.

These unique knitting needles can be purchased through my web shop.