The author Rachael Matthews is a lecturer in Textiles at Central St Martins, specialising in Knit and colour. Through 20/21 lockdowns, her practice moved into experiments with weaving, after discovering a need to deal with the mounting piles of textiles in her family cupboards and on the streets around her home. This work gained her a placement at The Experimental Weave Lab, hosted by two CSM colleagues, at the Clothworker's Company in the City of London. Sharing a studio with other experimental weavers and learning about many ancient ways of making things, a new world started to appear, with an endless source of modern materials to hack. Sharing the skills with a diverse community group in East London, the practice deepened with a new knowledge about how people can design together without the training of Art School. Rachael has written three books, The Mindfulness in Knitting: Meditations on craft and calm, Leaping Hare Press; Knitorama and Hookorama, MQP. She was the co-creator of the Cast-Off Knitting Club and owner of Prick Your Finger, the radical yarn shop in London's East End.