Did you hear about a group of knitters who knitted their way around the Circle Line, or the one about the knitters being thrown out of the Savoy? Then you’ve met Rachael Matthews before. At the helm of the Cast off Club for Girls and Boys, back in the 2000s Rachael was the instigator of all that knitting in public, reclaiming public spaces.

Before blogs were a thing, I read a piece by Betsy Greer, then studying at Goldsmiths, mentioning Rachael and Cast Off, and finally made contact with the artist herself and on behalf of the publisher I was working for at the time, commissioned her to write a book, Knitorama and later on Hookorama. Rachael turned the whole book making process into a collaborative event, bringing in contributions from contacts and friends many of them successful artists in their own right — it was a lot of fun.

Prick Your Finger

So when Rachael set up shop with Prick Your Finger I wasn’t surprised to find more people being involved and encouraged, from the interns nurtured behind the counter to the artists given their first exhibition in the window. Strict ethical principles meant all yarns were all from the UK, some handspun and dyed, and among the skeins some Herdwick from Cumbria where Rachael grew up. “I have learned enough about the wool to see myself as a small part of the supply change, working the fibre from sheep to shoulder,” she says.

During this time, Rachael began teaching darning, notably teaching Hikaru Noguchi among others, who went on to lead the charge in repair. Hikaru credits Rachael in her first book, Darning: Repair, Make, Mend, which I produced at another publishing house. Her latest book, Beyond Darning is probably her best yet, in terms of the breadth of information and instructions. 

Celia Pym, Rachael Matthews and Hikaru Noguchi at the launch of Darning, Loop Knitting, Camden Passage, London

Reinventing rags

Everything Rachael does is unconventional — when the invite came to the opening of the shop it contained a needle and thread so I really did prick my finger — and although her process may seem anarchic, but you soon realise there is a tough-as-Herdwick thread of integrity through everything she does. During the shop years there were plenty of projects with co-conspirator Louize Harries, including musical spinning performances, an Analogue Amnesty, where tape was spun with other woollens to created hybrid fibres that might reflect the character of the music or film – Rastafarian colours for a reggae tape, cotton for a copy of the movie Ghandi. Then there was the Knitted Wedding at the Pump House Gallery and Louder Than Bombs an exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery reinventing the wool manufacturing process to illustrate the perils of the industry, and as a way of measuring the value of what we do and encouraging us to think about the value of craft.

Knitting on the ferry, Shetland 2017

This reinvention of the yarn creation process has culminated in Rachael's latest book, Rag Manifesto. Developed during the lockdown years, Rag Manifesto takes consumer waste and re-spins it into another story, allowing us all to reclaim the means of production.