Milford House - Oxford

A recent business relocation to Oxford is Vonnie’s wonderful luxury linen business “Milford House”   After 10 years in Matakana, Vonnie moved down to Oxford, lock, stock and barrel.  Milford House is a delightful country cottage type of building full of linens, embroidered items, children’s clothing, and all sorts of interesting textile items.  Fragrant white roses frame the path into the shop, and I wandered around the rooms the rooms full of interesting stock.   This friendly owner welcomed us into her pretty shop, and I noticed she was busy doing wool embroidery on a blanket.

Milford House in Oxford

Many of the items for sale feature hand embroidery.  Pretty smocked dresses and embroidered kiddies clothes would make any besotted grand-mother reach into her purses to buy a little something for her darlings.  Little knitted jumpers and hand embroidered woollen cot blankets also line this room of the shop, and I noticed a couple of cot quilts here too.

Pretty kiddies clothes

Babies knitting and woollen blankets

Vonnie loves fine linen and has a wonderful range of both Egyptian cotton and Irish bed linen for sale.  This gorgeous bed was set with crisp white linen, pretty white cushions, and a lovely crocheted bed cover.

  All set for a good night’s sleep

An assortment of hand stitched cushions

It was a shame we were moving on as Vonnie also teaches embroidery – I could do with some tuition myself but I’m sure the local ladies appreciate her talents.  Check out her website on www.milfordhouselinen.co.nz

Jo Seagar’s Cafe at Oxford

Lunch at Jo Seagar’s Cafe in Oxford was on our “must do” list, and we have been eagerly looking forward to it.  Jo and her family had relocated here several years ago from the North Island, and runs her thriving Cafe, Cook School and Kitchen Store in this pretty little town.  Jo Seagar, with her bubbly nature  is a “Kiwi Treasure” and I love her TV programmes, and have several of her cook books at home.  She has made the term “easy peasy” very much her own, as well as her oft repeated statement, “never trust a skinny cook”.    With eight people in our group I asked if we could put some tables together, and the staff happily obliged.  Now, let’s check out those menus.  Everything sounded so tasty, what shall we order?  Steaming plates were delivered to a table close by ours, and the young ladies enjoying their meal  were happy to tell us what they had ordered.  That made up our minds – we want what they are having!

Friendly staff in the cafe

Paintings of rural New Zealand farm scenes lining the walls were for sale and seemed quite reasonably priced to me.  Sheep, border collies,  cattle and rusty old barns were all beautifully captured.

New Zealand farm scene

Beautifully worked cross stitch panels adorned the walls on the way to the bathrooms, and these were stitched by Jo’s mother, the staff told me.  Except perhaps the oldest sampler, the stitching read “M Stares, aged 8, 1821”, obviously a family heirloom.

Made by Jo’s mother

Stitched in 1821

We enjoyed our delicious lunches and can certainly recommend a trip to this wonderful cafe.  Jo was busy teaching her pupils in the Cook School today, we were told, so there was no chance that we could say hello.  Check it all out on www.joseagar.com

It’s Washing Day

Laundry duties don’t stop just because we’re on holiday.  We are currently camped at Wakari Domain, and wonder of wonders, there was  a free washing machine in the laundry room for the campers!  Free or not, our group all had washing to do and we would have quite happily paid whatever amount was required.  This machine was as slow as a proverbial wet week.  Our caravan was the last of of group to arrive on site, which meant that unfortunately I was 4th in line.  Time to get our tiny little washer out, which we had just purchased on “Trade Me” last week.  We lifted it up on the sink in the kitchen, filled it up with water and detergent, added a few “smalls”, switched on the power,  and away we went.

A tiny little washing machine

Being so small, the capacity is very limited.  After my first load was rinsed, we refilled and managed to squash four tee shirts into the washer.  Unfortunately this machine does not have a spin function, so the rinsed clothes have to be wrung out by hand.

Mini washing machine

By the time I had these two tiny loads pegged out on the line, the proper washing machine in the laundry finally became free. – my turn at last.  In went the towels  and the other clothes still to be washed – what bliss, this machine washes, rinses and spins and I don’t have to lift a finger while it is all happening.  On reflection, my mini washer might well turn out to be a bit of a “white elephant”.  It will continue on our travels with us around the South Island but I think it may well find itself back on Trade Me when we return home.

A Patch of Country - Kaikoura

I had heard about a wonderful “must see” patchwork shop in Kaikoura, and what a wonderful, friendly place it is.  Beautifully scented white roses line the path up to the shop, and I stepped in the door into a wonderland of delight.

Such a pretty entrance to the shop

Rachel has owned the shop for about 6 years, she told me, and it is chocker-block full of fabric, patterns, notions and knitting wool.She is now stocking woollen fabric and has a nice range of patterns to show how to work with this wonderful warm fabric.

Working with woollen fabric

The shop is organised into rooms.  This one had everything you could need for a child's quilt.  There was a lovely range of kiddies fabrics,  including Jemima Puddle Duck and friends, patterns, and lots of soft toys. ‘

Need to make a kiddies quilt?

Another room was full of lots of New Zealand fabrics, plus a good selection of black and whites.  There were plenty of NZ patterns on offer, plus a good selection of cross stitches showing New Zealand scenes.

New Zealand fabrics and patterns in this room

Rachel has lots of stitchery samples adorning the shop, and a great range of stitchery patterns.  I love doing stitcheries, they are so handy and portable to do while travelling.  I really enjoyed pottering about this pretty shop, thank you Rachel for your friendly welcome.  Do pop in if you are passing through Kaikoura, and check out the shop on www.apatchofcountry.co.nz

Quilter’s Barn, Blenheim

It wasn’t too long before I came across my first quilt shop of the trip.  Tucked away in the middle of vine growing country in Blenheim, we found “The Vines Village”, boasting amongst other shops a quilt shop, and a  fudge shop.  The men made a bee-line to sample some fudge, I checked out the quilt shop.

I’ve found a quilt shop

I always ask permission to take a few snaps, which was happily given.  This shop has a great range of New Zealand fabric, patterns, and kits.  Hanging on the wall was a similar “New Zealand Postcard” quilt which I made and presented to my UK pen friends during our trip several years ago.

Plenty of New Zealand fabrics on offer

There was a huge range of batik fabrics too, which I adore.  This fabric is so nice to work with.

Lots of delicious fabric

Fancy a mini quilt show?  Just walk down the adjacent hall and there they all are, waiting to be admired.

Japanese inspired quilt

A Quilter’s  Life

We’re moving on to Kaikoura and I’ve heard there is a lovely quilt shop there, so ‘hopefully I’ll be able to check that out as well.  So, watch this space.  And don’t forget, you will be able to follow our travels and adventures on our South Island Odyssey Trip on our Travel Blog

www.romanyrambler.blogspot.com

One more Sleep to go

Only one more sleep to go before we head  “down south”.  I’ve made sure that I’d packed my stitching away in the caravan - here it is all rolled up around a cardboard roll.  I’ve got several projects traced onto fabric and all ready to go.  And to keep everything clean I’ve wrapped it up in one of my fancy UK quilters tea-towels.

All wrapped up and ready to stitch

I’ve traced off the design for a “Herb Farm” cushion for my daughter, a gardening picture for a friend, and just in case I run out of things to do, I’ve added a couple of Red Brolly Christmas designs too.  That should keep me busy.

Things to stitch

The South Island is full of wonderful scenery and you can follow our adventures on our Travel Blog www.romanyrambler.blogspot.com

Friday Stitchers get-together

It’s been a long time since the last monthly Friday Stitchers get-together, so it was good to catch up with everyone again.  This is the first meeting of the year, and will be my last for a while, as we heading south on Monday for an extended caravan trip.  Seems that most of the ladies have been quite busy over the last couple of months, with several finishes brought along to show everyone.  Joyce in particular had been especially busy, and had three quilts to show us.  The black and white “Snail Trail” with a touch of red is all finished and ready for her grand-daughter’s wedding.

Snail Trial wedding quilt

Joyce had added a narrow folded inner border in red just inside the binding and this looked particularly effective, we all thought.

A touch of red in the binding

“Through the Cottage Window” was made by Joyce for the challenge at the recent Stonestead outdoor Quilt Festival – unfortunately I was away at the time so never got the chance to attend.  Now let me see – that looks like a pussy cat gazing out the cottage window at several quilts hanging on the clothes line!  What a clever idea Joyce came up with.

Through the Cottage Window

Anne was busy stitching down the binding on a very colourful house quilt she had made in a class at Thimbles and Threads, with trees of different shapes between the houses.  The narrow striped inner border and the spotted outer border add a nice finish to the quilt. 

Anne’s House quilt

Another bright and cheery quilt was the cot quilt just completed by Christine.  This one is going to a friend for her little grand-son.  Here’s more of the great striped fabric, and it works so well as sashing between all those colourful blocks.

Bright and cheery cot quilt

Back to Joyce again and here she is hand quilting her lovely quilt made with lots of New Zealand fabrics.  That’s going to be a big job.

Joyce has started hand quilting

There were several other ladies busy chatting and sewing too.  Several were working on hexagons, and Judith was stitching down the binding (more stripes) on her glorious blue and white hand quilted masterpiece, while I was working on my last teddy stitchery block.  We had a lovely afternoon together, and it turns out that several of us will be enjoying holidays over the next few months.  No doubt there will be lots of news to catch up with on my return from our South Island holiday.