A festival just for sewists

Ommel 2023 is a sewing festival with a strong communal aspect for all sewists from beginners to professionals. The event combines a fabric and sewing supply market, a three-day sewing retreat, and educational contents such as courses, lectures, and workshops.

We are inviting all fabric sellers from the Nordic countries and visitors from all over the world to come join us. Besides just fantastic fabric, all kinds of material and notions from threads to sewing machines and magazines will be for sale.

A good selection of just sewing products and activities. Other craft fairs include so many other techniques but here you could concentrate on just sewing.

Entry to our festival is free! Workshops and lectures are also free and you don’t have to sign up for them in advance. The sewing retreat, courses and accommodation in the school are paid, and you can book your place on this site closer to the event.

Ommel 2018 was the first time the festival was organised and 3000 people attended. We received lots of positive feedback which allowed us to make Ommel 2019 even bigger. That year we had 4000 people visiting our festival.

Opening hours

The event is open

Fri 9th June 12:00-20:00

Sat 10th June 10:00-18:00

Sun 11th June 10:00-16:00

Location and arrival

The event is held on Opinmäki campus in Suurpelto, Espoo. Since we have a limited number of parking spots, we request that as many visitors as possible will arrive by public transport or that you carpool with others.

Address: Lillhemtintie 1, 02250 Espoo, Finland

https://opinmaki.fi/en/front-page/

Program

Entrance to the event is free of charge! Workshops and lectures are also free and you don’t have to sign up in advance for them. The sewing retreat, courses and accommodation at the school are booked and paid in advance.

The festival program will be released by early April.

Courses

We offer a wide range of courses. Most courses are taught in Finnish.

Sewing retreat

The sewing retreat is a communal event where everyone brings their own sewing machines, fabrics and other equipment, and sews together with others. At the retreat everyone is sewing separately but together – everyone has their own projects and plans.

Workshops

Workshops are mostly free of charge (there are some where you have to pay a small fee for the materials) and you don’t have to book anything in advance. You can pop over in between shopping and sew a hat or an ironing mitt, get to know how to use snap pap or cork, and test industrial and embroidery machines.

Lectures

Sit down for a while and learn new things in our free lectures. The topics range from entrepreneurship in crafts to sustainable choices in textiles, predicting trends and Finnish national dress. Some of the lectures will also be streamed online (more on this later). The lectures are in Finnish.