This has got me thinking about family and craft and family craft and crafty families. I know that I’m incredibly lucky that there are five generations alive in my family right now, from my great-grandmother to my cousin’s four-year-old daughter (we narrowly missed out on six, as my great-great-grandma only died a year or so before Kim was born) and there are a lot more women in my family than men (I’m not anti-men, I’m going with something here), so I’ve always been surrounded by strong, intelligent, creative women. My grandma taught me to knit, my auntie (a fellow lefty) taught me to crochet, my mum has helped me contend with countless crafty disasters over the years. It’s nice. Our menfolk roll their eyes, but creativity is something that we can always rely on that we share, and not in a schmultzy way, just in a practical, friendly way. There are things that I do that are very personal to me, like writing, and things that I do that make me part of a community, like knitting, and it’s comforting to have that divide. I don’t think there’s anyone who crafts in complete isolation, it’d lose half the purpose. So, here’s to my crafty ladies!

* How great would actual shopping hats be? Probably not that great, actually.

For any readers overseas who haven’t come across this lovably silly English folk dance with its hankie waving and stick bashing, here’s a closer look at their jigging feet.

“Hot Rods, Hula Girls, Hairy Beasts, Himalayan Head Hunters and the Holy Bible are just some of the subjects under discussion by illustrators Linzie Hunter, Allan Sanders, Rod Hunt and Nishant Choksi.” Great premise huh? It only runs from today till 4 October though, so if you want to see it, get yourself down to the Coningsby Gallery by Tottenham Court Road pronto.

www.hotrodsandhairybeasts.co.uk

These fellows above were protesting at the pagoda in China Town. Here’s the long shot that shows their tiny size.

Other tiny people that day were making tiny roadworks, having tiny picnics and cordoning off a tiny crime scene around a severed fingertip. There’s something real and human about these little people, I find them so arresting. I love the fact that this is street art that could be so easily missed. I think my favourites have to be his inner city snails. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find one by chance, slithering across the pavement?

It’s your last chance to catch the show at Cosh this week as it finishes on Saturday. (Cosh is at 69 Berwick Street, Soho, London, W1F 8SZ T. 020 7287 7758).

You could also check out Slinkachu’s brand new book or see more pics on his blog.

We wandered along with them for a wee while, cheering hopefully for our duck, though there was no way of telling which one it was – I guess we’ll have to check back on the site to see if we won. We cried off for lunch fairly quickly, though; there’s only so much slow-moving duck action that can entice a girl, to be honest. Maybe if there’d been a weir or something that the ducks could take a tumble over and get us excited. Still, it’s not every day that you see 250,000 rubber ducks sailing down the river.

Recently at a village fete style event run by the lovely live art people Home, I met a lady called Izzy Lane, who rescues sheep which would otherwise be killed due to such crimes as being male, missing a pregnancy, being too lame, small, old or otherwise ‘flawed’ (it’s not only us humans under pressure to be perfect, you know). Once Izzy has rescued these shat-upon sheep, she uses their wool to produce gorgeous clothes. Izzy says she has a passion for “great clothes, animals and Britain”. That pretty much sums up my own interests, too.

I’m having fashion palpitations over her cashmere waistcoat above. It’s £148, which puts a slight dampener on things, although I do think that’s an excellent price. Everything is right about this piece – the goats are happy, the design is perfect, the construction looks beautiful, it’s probably softer than snow. I did just spend around this amount of money on a bowl from the new Rob Ryan shop, Ryantown, but I’m already paranoid about it breaking, and let’s face it, I’m not going to wear a bowl out or have to get it dry-cleaned, so my damage paranoia can be contained (just like my apples). If I had this waistcoat, I’d only be able to wear it in sterile situations.

So for now I’ll just stare longingly at this picture.

Sigh.

Just a quick note to tell anyone reading this in London today that the annual wonder that is the V&A Village Fete is taking place tonight and tomorrow afternoon. Not your average fete, this one is filled with games and bizarre activities laid on by London’s funnest creative people. Stalls this year include a tatt off, a beard tent and helioke (karaoke + helium).

I do love a tombola, so I will be cycling over after work tonight. See you there?

The fete takes place in the garden at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. It’s on tonight Friday 25 July 18.30-22.00 & tomorrow Saturday 26 July 13.00-17.00. Can’t find any info on the website about tickets. I think it’s free or cheap to get in, but will be busy so arrive early.

If you can’t get enough fetes, tickets are also on sale for the Innocent Village Fete, which is 2nd and 3rd August. Ah, I do love London in the summer.

This is the outside of The Museum for Objects of Vertu. Inside is a tiny, dark room, in corsetry and textiles artist Fleur Oakes’s studio, where she holds the tiniest exhibitions. It’s in deepest suburban north London, in the grounds of an amazing rambling old house, that contains many artists’ studios in many strange small buildings around the grounds. Last time I went there I felt I’d been invited to a private party held a hundred years ago. There’s an exhibition on this weekend (and by appointment until 27th July) and so if you like ramshackle gardens, ancient haberdashery, cups of tea and tiny handcrafted miraculous works of art you should go.

It’s open Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th July from 12noon – 6pm, at 89 Park Road, New Barnet (take the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters – it’s always worth a journey to the end of the line…)

I’ve not posted for a while and I’ll continue to be fairly quiet for the next month or so. The fun reason for this is that my landlord’s mortgage lender repossessed our flat and we got evicted without a jot of notice. So, we’re sleeping on our friends’ floor for the next month (we have found a lovely place to move into, though) and I don’t have any of my usual facilities for posting lovely craft stuff. I’m taking lots of photos, though, so I’ll have lots to share when I get my photo software back.

This is more of a warning that a sympathy post. We were paying our rent, doing everything by the book, but because our landlord hadn’t declared tenants to his mortgage company, we had no rights when this all went down. We spent three days in court trying to get extra time and then we had to fight for a week to gain access to get our stuff back. Now we’re taking the landlord to court to try and get our deposit back. I’ve got a feeling that things like this will become alarmingly more usual with this credit crunch malarky. If you’re renting, I’d advise that you make sure that your landlord has told their mortgage company that you’re there and that they’ve put your deposit in a protection scheme.

Luckily, we’ve got some amazing friends supporting us and we’re riding it out fairly well. I’m looking forward to moving into our lovely new flat, but I don’t plan to move again for a long while after that! Four moves in less than a year are not fun.