Annemieke Mein ... bliss!!

I've just returned home from the most wonderful day out with a lady from work (Wendy) - we left my place just before 9am, and set off for Sale in the Gippsland area of Victoria. It was a gloriously sunny day, only marred by some heavy fog about an hour away from Sale. We met a close friend of Wendy's called Deb there, with her 7 year old son Andrew, who'd driven down from Paynesville to join us. We had a toasted sandwich and coffee in a small coffee shop in town, before heading over to the Gippsland Art Gallery for "Annemieke Mein - Wildlife in Textiles Retrospective Exhibition" ... oh boy, I can't tell you how amazing it was to see almost an entire gallery filled with Annemieke Mein pieces!! Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed, but I ended up buying her book from the Gallery before leaving ... the book has a number of pieces in it that were on exhibit, so it will be a wonderful souvenir for years to come, and it will always make me relive my happy memories of the exhibit today. Here are a couple more of her pieces from a Gippsland tourism website that were on display:


My jaw was permanently dragging along the floor from one piece to the next - it's a shame Mum couldn't be here for it ... just mind-blowing! Annemieke includes machine embroidery with textile painting, and her pieces are three-dimensional and exceptionally life-like. Some pieces on the walls are over 6ft tall, and it just blew me away ... There were also some 'samplers' on display which showed step-by-step the designing process Annemieke follows, and it's awesome to see the original black and white pencil drawings gradually coming to life as the "real thing". Wendy doesn't do embroidery at all, but was extremely enthusiastic about it all, and it was a joy to spend the day with her today - all in all, it was a wonderful day out, and I'm so glad I made an effort to go out of my way to get there. Admittedly, now I'm home again, I'm quite weary, as it's about 3 hours each way driving, but I'll be smiling sweetly in my sleep tonight :D

I even managed to get one of my bedroom curtains fixed last night ... I'm doing you out of a job, Mum haha. I'm too tired to do the second curtain tonight, so that'll be a job for me tomorrow - tonight I might just kick back with a glass of port and 'veg out' for a bit ;)