Topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) have attracted much attention from the physics and mathematical communities over the last thirty years, and for good reason: in low dimensions they let simple topology inform less-understood algebraic constructions. In the first half of this talk we will introduce factorization homology, a powerful procedure for constructing TQFTs out of homotopical gadgets, called $\mathsf{E}_n$-algebras. We explore this in dimension $n=1$, by using string-nets. In the second half of the talk, we introduce TQFTs with defects and factorization homology for stratified spaces and for an appropriate notion of stratified $\mathsf{E}_n$-algebra. Once again, we focus on dimension $n=1$, and will end by offering a conjectural connection between string-nets on stratified cylinders, Drinfel'd centres for bimodule categories and quasiparticles in a topological quantum computer.