Energetic, eccentric, and creative, Rachel Johnson is the face of Hackney’s upcycling movement. A full-time seamstress and long-time resident, Rachel has made it her mission to bring vintage fabrics back to life.
She hosts accessible sewing workshops and Stitching Hackney, a meetup group for anything crafty: knitting, crochet, embroidery. Her classes attract a range of students, from teenagers looking to mend up their Vinted purchases to elderly women wanting to sew their own clothes. Teaching is her way of giving back to the community, providing a relaxing environment to de-stress and have fun.
We speak over the phone as Rachel feeds her cat. “She’s sweet when she’s being fed,” she tells me from her houseboat in Hackney Wick. She wears her fabulous red hair in braids. Her studio is decked out in pink lights and balls of yarn. She sends me a photo of two newly crocheted hats – in the shape of a frog and a dog – and tells me she always has multiple projects on the go. “I crochet obsessively. I’ve got little baskets with each project in, so when I get home in the evening, I can choose which thing I want to crochet.”
“crochet is my sanctuary”
Rachel’s lifelong love of handiwork began when her mum taught her to crochet as a child. “That’s literally all I did,” she says. “I used to make just these long worms of crochet that I wore as necklaces and bracelets. We were quite a crafty family. It was always encouraged.”
After a creative hiatus as a teenager, Johnson revived her love of crochet when she found herself fifteen years ago on an eight-hour flight to Dubai. “The idea of watching mindless movies didn’t really appeal,” she explains. So, she grabbed a ‘teach yourself’ crochet book and taught herself five different stitches during the flight. By the time she landed she had run out of yarn. “We had to drive to a haberdasher DIY store in a very local part of Dubai to buy more.”
Last week Rachel hosted her first crochet workshop at Vaffancoffee in Hackney Wick. “They’re my studio neighbours, they sell some of my artwork, and I love them to bits.”
Yet despite her love of the craft, Rachel prefers to teach sewing. “Crochet is my sanctuary, if you like. It’s a thing I like to do in my free time. So, teaching it full-time would make it a job.”
“creatively, i think nothing is too ridiculous at all”
So, instead of teaching crochet, Rachel hosts a range of sewing workshops in her studio where students can learn basic sewing, embroider rude words on a tea towel, or make a bag from upcycled denim. “People have just really knocked me sideways with the brilliance of what they’ve made,” she says.
One of her students, Josie Feltham, praises Rachel as “an amazing teacher and non-judgemental”. This friendly relaxation is at the heart of Rachel’s ethos: “I think everyone is creative, they just haven’t found their thing yet,” she tells me. “Creatively, I think nothing is too ridiculous at all – just make it and see what happens.”
You can sign up for Rachel’s sewing classes using the Class Bento link here
