To celebrate International Women’s Day, I’m launching a new season of Monk on a Motorbike podcasts with an interview with political activist, textile artist, and author Rachael Matthews.

Rachael first came to fame in the 1990s when she was organizing knit-ins on the London Underground, and in clubs, pubs, museums and open spaces around the city.

Here she talks about knitting as a politically subversive act, her spiritual journey through wool, selling knitted willy warmers and dealing with burn out!!

Rachael is the author of the beautifully written book the Mindfulness in Knitting. She teaches textile design and knitting at London’s prestigious Central St Martin’s School of art and design