This book is a unique view of the traditional art of rag rug making for this age of the Anthropocene. Projects made in the artist's studio and with a community group, highlight a reverence for our lost textiles, a response to the environmental impact of fast fashion and a proof that rag is a rich resource, wrongly classed as a taboo material.
Rachael Matthews is a working-class poet who paints poetic miniatures of domestic and psychological interiors. Her debut pamphlet, do not be lulled by the dainty starlike blossom, is a playful, dark meditation on the queer body as site of pleasure, connection, fertility, loss and trauma. Matthews finished writing these poems during lockdown, while she was heavily pregnant with her daughter. It was an unwitnessed pregnancy, experienced in isolation from friends and family, and invisible to the psychotherapy patients she was treating virtually when New York City became the global epicentre of the pandemic. Resilience and hope are woven into its DNA.
Everyone can pick up a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. And everyone can be mindful. 'Mindfulness in Knitting' casts fresh light on this famously calming craft, and reveals how the simple repetition of plain and purl can in itself nurture wellbeing. It explores the joys of making and looks at the benefits of taking up one of the simplest and most useful of crafts.
Dogs can't knit. But they sure can wear it well.